Meet Me In Samarra
by O'Donnell
Summary: In The Six Thatchers Sherlock Holmes and John Watson face adventure and tragedy, new life and death. They learn how the past damages the present, and changes the future. And how Ammo and Ajay, Thatcher and Tiblisi and a black pearl change everything forever. Sherlock/John. Mycroft, Mary, Lady Smallwood
1. Chapter 1

Meet Me In Samarra

It is not so much that I hate Series Four. It is the fact that the episodes contravene and contradict the characters and psychologies the three earlier series of _Sherlock_ established, and were loved for. And that the final series was off kilter and full of absurdities and plotholes large enough to drive a bus through. (And needs an S5 to correct…..)

I am sure a better and more believable version should be out there, but I have not yet found _The Six Thatchers_ tackled as a whole in fan fiction. So I am having a go at putting this ' bit not good' episode as right as possible using devil-in-the-detail and prior context as the basis. Trusting that a more credible version of the story is in there if you look for it, written here as if with a new script edit and focus. So come along for the ride and we'll see where we go. And how we get there!

Why? Just because this episode seems a natural end to the trilogy after my two other long stories which improvised upon and expanded _His Last Vow_.

Some sub plot elements of _TST_ will be ignored, others addressed and extended to round out the story and strive for something more credible and realistic. While plot references and OCs from my prequel stories _Things We Lost In The Flames_ and it's sequel, _The Magnussen Legacy._ will feature for consistency and continuity _._

 _Best to have read the other two for background and context, but not essential._

This version of _The Six Thatchers_ is what it will become. In effect, a riff and a re-edit.

And so we pick up directly from where my last story finished….

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 1

 _Don't get too close, it's dark inside. It's where my demons hide._

 _(Imagine Dragons, Alex Da Kid, Josh Mosher)_

On an ordinary day, on an ordinary London street, working on a case that might seem very ordinary, but could be life changing, he stuttered to a halt, dragged in a deep breath and thought he might be having a heart attack.

This was not the adrenalin rush of a good case coming together. The feeling that swelled in his chest was choking him. His face twisted with sensation, and he gasped for air. Dizzy in some totally unfamiliar and unknown sensation, and rather terrifying.

He found himself clutching at both the dog lead he was holding and the metal garden railings he was standing beside to ground himself. Refusing - _definitely refusing! -_ to clutch his chest like an old man having a heart attack.

The inside of his head felt light, offline, as if it going to explode, something airy and bubbling, blooming up his chest and into his brain. Something good? Not good? How could he tell? Within a sensation he had never experienced before?

For a moment he could not speak. Thought he might fall over. Resisted the impulse to make an unusual noise. Groan, whimper, growl? _What?_

Foolish. This was stupid, letting the transport dominate, something he had never, would never, allow. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Was he dying?

Shook his head to clear it, and so attracted the attention of the small blonde haired woman standing on the doorstep of a nearby house, frozen in the act of passing a baby from herself to a man who was clearly her partner, her other half, with that synchronicity of looks and physicality that marriage sometimes reveals.

He was short and compact too, with lightly greying blond hair and that worn, shabbily attractive look of so many people in their early Forties.

She looked over at the man who was not her partner, but still a man she looked at with what many might describe as love, and looked with a keen, assessing eye.

Paused and looked: really looked. Read him in a heartbeat - _reads me? No-one reads me! No-one at all! Stop it! -_ and then smiled at him. A smile of rare sweetness, which spread from her eyes to her mouth, to the set of her shoulders. She relaxed softly into his gaze.

And when he frowned at her - that baffled little boy frown all about drawing his eyes in and forwards to concentrate, wrinkling his nose in worry - she almost laughed.

He had just told her how much he admired her knowledge and skills, loved her for it. Was that the reaction a little praise - _No! Objective assessment!_ \- engendered? Really? He should have known better ….but that feeling had overwhelmed him. Had been threatening to overwhelm him for months, he realised.

The slow careful smile she gave him blossomed into something deep and rich and genuine. A sparkling smile taking years from her mind as well as her eyes.

The man at her side noticed her change of focus from himself and the baby, turned his head and followed her warmly concentrated look. Seeing the target of her attention, his own composed features broke into a grin too.

And then they were all grinning at each other. Like children, not the damaged adults they were. Grinning like idiots. If they were young, and naïve, and whole, they would punch the air. But they were older than that. Had never been young. So instead they shared a grin that robbed his lungs of air and filled his heart beyond capacity with something…..

 _Not a heart attack, you fool! Something much more serious and debilitating._

 _Something you have never felt before. Happiness. Joy. And you are a fool to even recognise it, for recognising it and letting it in will corrupt your cold grey heart! Do you realise that? Do you?_

 _How can you let this ….thing…. creep in and drown you, on an ordinary day in an ordinary street? Let humanity in and let it weaken you? Are you ill? How can you allow yourself to be loved, drawn in and accepted as part of a loving family? How?_

 _Dangerous. Yes. Fatal. Foolish. So foolish. See what happens when that happens? You will have to pay for allowing this….this enfeebling fondness._

 _How could you - how did I - let this happen? Let emotion sneak through those high walls no-one else has breached? How can you bear it? Admit to it? Control it?_

 _How to deny how this ordinary looking woman and this ordinary looking man - yet neither of them ordinary, not ordinary at all - have spotted your weaknesses, and see through you as if you are a child?_

 _Love you despite that. Love you and their baby girl. Love. You._

 _You? Me._

 _Oh, please!_

 _Hold in the panic. Scrabble back to safe and solid ground. Breathe and wait._

 _Keep smiling. Push it away._

 _No. Hold onto that bubble of love and life. It doesn't happen often. So don't panic. This weakness will not last long. It will pass. Feeling….admitting feeling …..is truly not allowed._

 _Only breaks in to soften you up. Before something awful happens to bring you back to your knees, that's how this works. How it has always worked. You know that._

 _Try being human. Then pay the price for such a failure, such human weakness? Oh, Christ, no._

He savagely dragged in a deep breath that seemed to bypass his brain, and filled his lungs with air that was fresh and pink and sparkling with bubbles and… _wrong!_

 _Pure bloody fairyland, you idiot. Get a grip. Control. Control…._

He gasped. Stepped forward, wiped all expression from his face, gathered his imperious persona back around him like a coat, offered some theory about the case, and the engine was up and running again. Brain working, heart merely an exchange pump for blood and air, not an organ of dangerous and debilitating emotion.

 _Ah. Better. Much better._

All three of them felt it though. Marked it. Never referred to that moment again.

But for the rest of the day he could (awkward, ashamed, embarrassed, emasculated, hamstrung) feel Dr and Mrs Watson slipping sly little smiles and amused glances in his direction.

 _They know! They saw!_

He ignored them, Their reaction, their humour. For that is what he does.

But for weeks and months afterwards, he too often recalled that surreal and surprising and totally unexpected moment of happiness.

A feeling, a moment out of time, that bubbled out of him despite himself - _him! Him of all people_ \- and enveloped them all, the two men, the woman and the child. The unit that was, for such a very short time, his family. The family of his heart, if not his genetic footprint.

It persisted, that feeling, as the only comfort he could find, all he had to hold onto, in the wasteland his life became.

Afterwards he clutched at the memory of that reality, that fragile and precious little bubble, like a drowning man to a lifebelt.

 _No he doesn't! No he can't!_

 _No, I bloody well can't! Control, control!_

o0o0o

Back in London, back from Aalburg, with the Magnussen case finally and totally ended, John Watson woke and walked and sat and fretted and wondered why Sherlock Holmes did not telephone or text him.

Standing back, giving time and space and recovery, it was two days before he himself tried to text, and his message pinged back to him as undeliverable.

Two days before he suddenly realised Sherlock Holmes' phone had been stamped into oblivion, back in Aalburg. And that the cheap burn phone that had been in his pocket afterwards had been claimed as police evidence.

Sherlock Holmes had no phone. No old SIM card. No contacts, no past.

"He's not got a phone!" he tried not to shout into his own mobile and failed miserably.

"Two days and he's still not got a phone. Is he ill?"

"John. Please be calm. A new mobile has been delivered to Baker Street. I am sure he will be back in contact shortly."

The words from the other end of the telephone held their usual asperity, but perhaps the tone was softer than usual. Was he imagining that? Some empathy left from their adventures in Denmark, the devastation of Appledore?

John Watson decided he was currently less cynical about that thought than normal, but still thought any such weakness from the British Government was an advantage to press home.

"How is he?"

"Fine. He's always fine. Catching up on sleep, apparently. According to Mrs Hudson."

"You haven't seen him?" There. The worry was back.

"Why would I?" A characteristic response.

A brief intense silence.

"Perhaps he might need you?" John Watson suggested on the mild edge of sarcasm.

"Or you?"

The reply bounced back like an arrow.

The tone of voice brooked no argument. There were reasons why Mycroft Holmes is the British Government, John Watson reflected. Changed the subject.

"Where do we go from here?"

"Onwards, ever onwards."

The words were arch and final.

Frustrated and determined not to lose his temper, John Watson simply put the telephone down and held it down. Mycroft Holmes did not ring back. John Watson knew he wouldn't. Too much like his younger brother

After five frozen moments he picked up the telephone again.

"Is Sherlock with you? Have you seen him?" he asked without preamble.

"Morning, John! Did you and Mary have a good Christmas with Sherlock's parents? Sherlock texted happy new year, said you were staying on for a few days….."

Molly Hooper's voice was bright, clear and without guile, and from the resonance through the speaker, he decided she was in the morgue attending to a body. Any body. As long as it was not Sherlock's body.

She did not know the truth about Appledore, he realised. About Denmark. About Sherlock's failed promise to go to Molly Hooper for STI testing. No surprise there, then.

"We've been back a couple of days. Sorry to bother you, Molly. I thought he'd said he would visit you yesterday…." He did not mention any need for blood tests. He did not mention Denmark." "….but I think I must have misheard him."

"Don't worry. You know what he's like. I bet he's had lots to do since he got home, I've never known him take a holiday. His mum and dad must have been so pleased."

She was cheerful and open, frighteningly normal. Herself. He would have known if she was lying. Molly did not lie well. Unless it was about something important. About things like knowing when people weren't really dead, or even not dead at all..

"What are they like?"

"Oh, you know. Charming. Polite. Refreshingly ordinary."

"Are you sure they're Sherlock's then?" she asked with a giggle.

He laughed back at her. Exchanged a few more pleasantries, and put the telephone down.

Tried again.

"'Morning, Mrs Hudson. How are you?"

"Very well, thank you John. This dry crisp weather is good for my hip. How's Mary? Any sign of that baby yet?"

"Not yet. Still a couple if weeks to go. Don't worry, we'll let you know when anything happens."

He smiled into the telephone at her. Potential great aunt by adoption? Granny substitute by proxy? Godmother, even?

"I should think so! Give Mary my love!"

"Of course! Mrs Hudson….." he hesitated now, careful. Martha Hudson was too astute sometimes. "Is Sherlock there?"

"Yes, of course. Where else would he be?"

Deep breath.

 _Just ask it. Just ask_.

"How is he?"

There was a pause that was both brief and too long.

"What's going on, John? I've had Mycroft on the phone asking the very same thing."

"Oh, you know..." he prevaricated. "He broke his phone, so we can't ask him direct."

"No. I don't know," she determined. "Sherlock without a phone? I don't think so. Everything is just not right. First the boys go to their parents for Christmas, when they never do that. And with guests, when they would never normally invite - sorry, John, but you know what I mean.

"Then Sherlock disappears. Reappears, and clearly something is wrong. Says he is giving up the flat, going away, hands back the keys. He is not just saying goodbye, he is saying farewell…..

"Then he's back. The very next day, Graffiti on the sitting room wall he hasn't written. Another bloody Magnussen appears, not a good sign. Then you _all_ disappear.

"I don't know if Sherlock is coming or going. If I'm coming or going! And every time he's been home he's looked more wretched. What's going on?"

"Nothing, I promise, Mrs Hudson. It's been a bit mad, the last couple of weeks, I'll grant you, but…"

"Pat-the-old-lady-on-the-head time, is it, John?" She clicked her tongue. "Well, I've let off some steam. I won't mention it again. I'm only your landlady after all."

"I think you're entitled…." he managed to mutter. Ignored her mistake. In her heart as well as her head, she still felt he lived there, even three years on. That he had never really left.

 _Don't think about that. Just don't._

"You want to know about him." She sighed. "Yes, he's here. Davy Gallagher came to fetch him yesterday but he'd put a note on the door saying he had changed his mind. Davy didn't seem worried, told me not to worry either. Said Sherlock just needed rest.

"He's been resting. Taken to his bed."

"The last few days away he was complaining how tired he was…." John Watson confirmed, and felt a pang of concern.

"I check him morning and evening, as always. Take up tea and toast."

" You're a treasure. Does he eat and drink?"

She did not answer directly.

"He hunkers down like this sometimes, you know that. When pushed beyond endurance. I'll give him another day before I start shouting at him."

John Watson heard himself laugh, despite his fears. Yes, he knew about that.

"Has he got up and dressed?"

"No. Just lying there."

"OK. When you speak to him next, tell him I called to say hello. Let me know when he comes out of hibernation."

"Tell him yourself," she said gently, and put the telephone down.

Before he could call anyone else, it rang under his hand. And he snatched it up again, taken by surprise.

"Hello, John. What's occurring? Where's Sherlock?"

"Morning Greg. He's at Baker Street. His phone's bust."

"Ah, that explains it. I was getting worried…." his voice trailed away.

"Any messages?" John Watson asked on a sigh.

"Yeah. Tell him the Ghanian has been moved to I-know-not-where by I-know-not-who. Forces beyond the Met, anyway. He's part of a major new case, apparently. MI5 MI6, European peace keeping forces. Know anything about it?"

"About as much as you, I guess."

"Yeah? Well, tell him when you see him, would you? "

And he was gone.

John Watson sat and pondered. Not happy with his thoughts.

 _Just lying there…_

"Have you spoken to him? Is he OK?"

Mary Watson brought him back to reality and put a cooked breakfast down in front of him and waited for her answer.

"No. Still no phone." Levelly. Then, hesitantly: "I'm not sure."

He looked up and forced a smile onto his face.

"No, he's fine. Of course he's fine. This looks a smashing breakfast. You spoil me!"

"You deserve it."

And he put a kiss to her cheek as she bent to ruffle his hair.

o0o0o

His first day back at work after Christmas had been a late shift, and he had busked hs way through it feeling unreal, disjointed, distanced.

Just days ago he had been on his hands and knees saving the life of a stab victim. Rampaging through corridors with Piet Bruhl at his side, shooting a villain dead with no hesitation or regret. Riding shotgun and playing backup to a more damaged and demonic Sherlock Holmes than he had ever seen before.

And now - here he was discussing sore throats and sciatica, making the big life decision of whether to drink real or decaffeinated coffee, making small talk and sick of smiling politely. Wanting to scream and shout Do something more bloody useful…!

He could feel even his thoughts sounded hysterical.

Three days back at Sherlock's side in what had felt like hyper space, and all the lights inside had immediately switched back on: guns and stress and running and blood pumping. Life and death and decision very different to the life and death and decisions within the sterile objective and so very safe environment of a medical surgery.

He had felt the adrenaline in him rise and hit and dissipate. He had felt the results of his decisions. He had felt the tug of excitement that was nothing at all like the humdrum responsibilities of his real life. Or, rather, his new reality.

And he had felt that pang of wishing for the past. For his life to be as it had been. And he had pushed all that down to concentrate on being doctor and husband and potential father.

And yet two resolute days later he was still worrying about Sherlock Holmes. Again. And he knew - despite himself, despite knowing Mycroft was always near, that Mrs Hudson was watching, that Lestrade and Molly Hooper were waiting - he knew he had to do something. See for himself.

o0o0o

The house was in darkness. Silence. Mrs Hudson's weekly evening spent next door with Mrs Turner, was it? He had put the small routines of the house out of his mind three years ago, when he had left it. He remembered that they happened - bin day, Mrs Turner evenings, rental payments - but the details had been lost to him long ago.

They didn't matter any more. Only one thing mattered.

He closed the front door softly behind him. Looked up the seventeen stairs towards 221B. No light, no sound, came from above. Stepped softly up the stairs. Pushed open the sitting room door.

The curtains to both windows were drawn, and the still soft air of the room had a feeling of having been closed in all day, or days. Perhaps since the moment Sherlock had arrived home.

He stepped forward to switch on the table lamp by his old chair, and the edges of the room came into view, dark pooled shapes of familiar furniture. The violin case seemed to be exactly where he had seen it last - _untouched then_ \- as were the three laptops, lids closed, on the old G-Plan dining table that served as a desk between the front windows.

A small pile of mail sat neatly in the centre of the coffee table, unopened, skewered by the Toledo dagger with the blue enamelled hilt that had been Mary's birthday present, the bubble wrap, string and brown paper that had enclosed it still crumpled alongside.

Also on the table was an unopened rectangular box containing a new mobile smart phone; top of the line and ultra expensive. Mycroft had been as good as his word, then. It was just the recipient who had not made the step to reconnect himself to the world.

But no slim body slumped in the grey Bauhaus chair, no pale angularity filled the old leather sofa. Nor did a hunched figure brood over experiments at the kitchen table.

Bedroom then.

The door was not locked, and John Watson opened it softly. And something indefinable, something of fear and trepidation, leapt in his heart and was throttled at birth before it rose into his throat.

Sherlock Holmes was in his bed, lying on his side and facing the door, and so deeply asleep it had seemed to John Watson for one manic moment he was not breathing.

A grey duvet was pulled up (pushed down?) to his waist. Both face and torso were naked in sleep and the slanted critical light showed all the damage, all the surface repairs old and new that made John Watson wince. Yet it was the all too human auburn stubble on his face and the pale, concave chest with it's central puckered scar that made the consulting detective look young, and vulnerable, and very alone.

As did the shallow lines of fresh cuts that had been closed with superglue. Trauma receding. Recovery was coming, but still being negotiated.

The eyes were closed, blue veins showing on the eyelids with those ridiculous long feminine lashes lying still on gaunt cheekbones, the querulous mouth unusually relaxed, and open a little in sleep.

"Sherlock?" he said softly, hoping his friend would wake. Moving closer he could now see the broken knuckles of the loosely curled right hand, and three bruises with pinprick blood points on the inside of the outflung left arm that had not been there three days ago. Needle marks.

John Watson groaned with an old despair, sat heavily down on the little chair by the bed and felt sick and very tired.

"Sherlock you are an utter bloody fool and I haven't a clue what to do with you." He huffed out a breath and resisted the temptation to haul the younger man awake and aware and smack him until he apologised for retreating again, resorting to drugs again, for not being safe to leave alone for five minutes again…..

"I knew I shouldn't have let you leave the other night. Knew I should have kept you with us, kept you safe. Couldn't you sleep? Not after everything that has happened? Couldn't you stop that rocket brain of yours, let it settle quietly on the launching pad and just stop for a change? Just turn it off like anyone else?

"Or was it all just too bloody much? With no-one to help you or to talk to? You are a total prat."

He sat and watched the motionless man for a few more moments, then made a decision. Left the room and fetched a glass of water, a blister pack of paracetamol and put them on the campaign chest by the bed. Sherlock would need those to hand sooner or later.

He stood back and looked. Made an exasperated sound in his throat and pulled the duvet up to Sherlock Holmes' shoulders.

"Just stay there and sleep. Sleep is good for you. If you are sleeping? Are you asleep, Sherlock?"

No reaction. No change in the reduced breathing pattern or in muscle tension. No flicker of the eyelids.

"How can you be the best and the bravest and the wisest man I know and yet you do this to yourself? How? Break this pattern, Sherlock. You are too good for this, and I am too stupid to know how to stop you…."

He stopped talking and ravaged his hands through his hair in impotent despair. Then made the decision to fetch a cup of tea, to leave it by the bed, in case Sherlock Holmes woke in the next few minutes.

But when he went to the refrigerator, it was empty. No milk, no fruit or vegetables, nothing else to drink or to eat. Empty and switched off since the tenant had left before Christmas and never switched on or stocked up since, he realised.

Just the offer of tea and toast twice a day….and no other input.

He was struck by a terrible sense of abandonment and aloneness on his friend's behalf.

He left the kitchen and stood in the doorway of the bedroom, hands on hips, Gave a short angry sigh of frustration.

"I'll be back," he said into the air, to a man in sleep or coma and who could not hear him..

Hand on the door of 221B, he cast a look back. Nothing had changed within the bedroom, there was no movement. And he was overcome once again with a sense of waste and of sadness.

Only after he had turned away did opalescent eyes open and watch him leave.

o0o0o

George Bradshaw punched the switch to close the electric gates of the main entrance and then opened the front door of the elegant modernist house just beyond Hampstead Heath.

"Sherlock Holmes for Lady Smallwood," said the visitor. Formal, expressionless baritone voice. "I am expected."

Dark overcoat with the collar flipped high. Blue cashmere scarf and overlong dark hair concealing expression. Hands fisted deep into pockets. Shoulders harsh and unyielding.

George Bradshaw responded in kind.

"Indeed, sir. Welcome to Fineshades. Please follow me."

He led the way to the formal dining room, even though he was well aware the guest knew the house and would have preferred to go alone. Refrained from making conversation. Even though he had known this younger man since he was eight years old; had taught and rescued and soothed and healed him. Had last spoken to him only three days ago.

He rapped lightly on the walnut door, waited for the voice from within to grant permission to enter, opened it and ushered Sherlock Holmes inside, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

The slim elegant woman seated at the head of the Finn Juhl dining table had an open briefcase and papers in front of her, but looked up when he entered, silently watched him halt a formally correct six paces from her to stand square, clasping his hands behind him at parade rest, expression unreadable.

Immaculate as ever, she observed. The usual uniform as armour. Clean, contained and cool. The visible damage to the face receding now. The enigma almost restored.

"How are you?" she asked without greeting or preamble.

"Fine. Thank you for asking." The tone was so neutral as to sound sullen.

"Colonel Bruhl and your brother have given reports on the events in Aalburg. Try again."

"Fine. Thank you for asking," he repeated. Then added with something that was almost insolence: "Lady Smallwood."

"Hmn. Like that is it?"

"No idea what you are talking about, Elizabeth."

She looked at him and he met her eyes with very deliberate blankness.

"You have just treated George like a stranger."

"Really." The single word was as uninformative as it was unyielding.

She tried again. Tried not to be seen looking at the damage he carried, or assessing his quality.

"Have you slept? Eaten? Been….." she had trouble finding the right phrase. "attended to?"

"Yes,"

"Had hoped you would be more communicative."

"Indeed? Then I shall confirm the Magnussen situation you commissioned me to resolve is finally over. Utterly. Over." He rose a little on the balls of his feet. Poised, arch, firm "It cannot touch you, or Jack's memory, ever again. No more problems for Ellie or Fredrik or Ari. All blackmail threats over. All the Magnussen empires destroyed."

"Thanks to you."

"I had help."

"Your investigation. Your plan. Your collateral damage."

He watched with silent and merciless intensity as her mouth twisted, as she swallowed back words she wanted to say, concern she wanted to express. He was in no mood to hear that, or help her say it.

"You commissioned me to solve the Magnussen problem. I have done so," he pointed out. "You paid me. Jack paid me. End of."

"It turned out more extensive than anyone expected. Wider repercussions."

"We were lucky."

"You call what happened to you lucky? "

"I had calculated for that eventuality. All of it, in the final analysis. Attack, torture and rape proved essential for process and end result. Nothing more nor less."

"Hmn." The small noise in her throat told him she did not believe him, but would - for his sake as well as her own - accept that statement at face value. For now.

She pushed the paperwork away and looked up at him. Stood to face him.

"I do have news for you. I prefer to tell you myself - here, privately and informally - rather than leave it to your brother so your filial connection does not undervalue or minimise what I am about to say."

There was the tiniest frown between the eyes and then it was gone, the impassive mask back in place. "Go ahead."

"Three weeks ago you killed Charles Augustus Magnussen in cold blood. In response to that act, the speed with which this rare and unusual thing has been expedited is a reflection of the importance of Magnussen's death.

"The depths of information and criminality which have been revealed by his paperwork is proving remarkable. And of great assistance to national security. None of this would have been revealed if you had not shot him."

He watched her with a blank sort of fierceness, but did not speak

"And by also bringing his brother to book and revealing a linked wide spread crime and human trafficking organisation you have done the world a great deal of good."

"Hyperbole," was the rigid reply.

"True nevertheless," she snapped. "Live with it, and now listen to me."

His head went back as if he had been struck. His grey wide eyes met hers again.

"To achieve clemency for murder is very rare," she explained sternly. "A pardon is a government decision and prerogative via the Secretary of State and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. It is dependent upon that illicit act, that most extreme act - murder in this case - being greater, in balance, as a more positive action for national security or human safety, than the illegal act itself.

"Clemency can be extended if the guilty party is considered to have paid his debt to society in absolution of that act. So you killed one Magnussen and revealed his secrets, then exposed the other Magnussen."

"You told Mycroft," his voice was calm and without inflexion. "You told your sub-committee which agreed the public version of what happened at Appledore - that I was off the hook; that a pardon was not needed."

His memory of that meeting in a darkened and secret committee room beneath Whitehall was total and unrelenting, despite his act of being high, of being over the top and beyond help; of pretending to be careless and tweeting, heartless and preferring ginger biscuits to explanation.

He had calculated only too well the disapproval behind everyone's eyes. Everyone's -except that of the woman before him. Who had chaired and steered the meeting and instructed that behaviour from him.

"Of course I did. But we know that is not exactly true, don't we? We had to clear up the mess and tidy it away as quickly and efficiently as possible. Invent a less particular truth that would be just as unpalatable but more acceptable, to those who needed to know. Even your brother.

"But the reality, the real truth, is known where it matters. So your formal pardon was deemed essential. But," she added firmly. "It is considered you have already met all terms for clemency and restitution by your actions since release from solitary confinement.

"And the application for your Royal Prerogative Of Mercy was approved at the highest level in the land and is subsequently going forward. Do you understand what I am saying?"

She watched him swallow hard and drop his head. She knew how much this would have preyed on his mind.

"Yes," he said briefly. "Thank you. And thank her."

"Thank you," she returned. "The lady is very astute, and appreciates all you have done. You cooperated on the public version of events we manufactured to explain Magnussen's death. You sacrificed acclaim, as well as truth, for the greater good.

"And your act of being high before the security sub committee could not have been better. Or more convincing. Made them want to wash their hands of you, and the situation, as fast as possible."

He nodded.

"The ginger nuts were a lovely touch," she added, allowing a smile to escape. " And the way you managed to thoroughly piss off and wrong foot your brother was delightfully convincing. And rather artistic."

He grinned back at her.

"My pleasure."

She knew he meant that, and it killed her smile.

"But we must press on, Sherlock. What is your current situation? With the work? With your colleagues?"

"I continue as before. Naturally. Consultant to Scotland Yard and privately. A consulting detective is what I am. But I now have my own connection with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with Danish police and military forces. We may all benefit from that."

"Nor forgetting your especial connection to MI5 and 6," she added primly. "For the record."

"Good job this is an off the record debriefing, then."

He nodded, said no more. Between herself and his brother he had a purity of connection at the very highest level, and his reluctance to mention that was both deliberately diplomatic as much as his own natural reserve, she knew.

"And what of your personal connections? Colonel Bruhl? The Watsons?"

"Captain Watson and Colonel Bruhl make an efficient team. Unexpected allies but not unwelcome."

"And Mrs Watson?"

He looked at Elizabeth Smallwood for a long time before he spoke. Knew, even more than she, the importance of what seemed such a simple question. And the importance of his answer to it.

"Her child is due within the next three weeks, and seems genuinely desired," he offered calmly. "I would not presume to predict how this maternal feeling will affect her in the future."

"You are telling me you trust her? Have empathy and have forgiven her for almost killing you?"

Her voice rose in tone a little; exposed both her disbelief and her evaluation of his opinion of the importance of Mary Morstan.

"She is a professional," he said coolly." She regrets shooting me and acknowledges her mistake. Her main intent was to protect her new husband. I appreciate that. Her husband is our connection in common. It will uniquely constrain her."

"Indeed so. But how long will it constrain her? Before her true personality emerges?"

He drew in a long slow breath and considered her questions, questions he recognised with dismay, but had known were coming, needed facing. Questions he had long forced outside the walls and corridors of his Mind Palace.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Of course you do! You read her AGRA file. But I understand Doctor Watson did not? Is that really the case?"

"Yes. He chose to exercise faith. Love, loyalty, all that sentimental rubbish.. I prefer to exercise truth and knowledge, however. He did not know I had read it before whichever one of them flung it to the back of a fire and destroyed it. A Christmas present of sorts, one to the other, I imagine. A sign of new and mutual trust. Sweet," he added with something like scorn. And deep distaste.

"You read it and copied it." Statement, not question.

"Of course I did! One of us had to know the truth. The woman is an assassin." The imperious iron self control wavered for a breath. He bent his head. Realised he had to give her something, however reluctantly.

"As distasteful as I may find it," he continued reluctantly, "They really do appear to be in a state of what is known as being in love. It weakens them both because they are both trying to appear better than they are to each other. And appear normal, whatever that may be, in their terms.

"Neither are normal. Both are exceptional professionals. Complimentary, but different. They seem reluctant to admit to each other that they are both professionals; trained killers as well as trained health professionals. You may understand their mutual conflicts."

"So what is your assessment? Knowing both better than anyone else?"

"Watson is tough and resilient. Reliable and committed Moral, though. Sometimes more doctor than soldier. His Achilles heel.

"Morstan is in a different league. Tough and objective, very sharp. She sees the bigger picture. More intelligent, less emotional than her husband, although she hides it well. Not averse to killing or being killed.

"Unusual for a woman. However much becoming a mother changes her - permanently or pro temps - is something I cannot as yet predict. The complication of a child is something we could do without, but it is what it is. It will be dealt with when it happens." He shrugged, off hand in his judgement. "But I assume her true nature will eventually assert itself. Child or no child."

" You sound as if you admire her, understand her, even. Are you really telling me you have forgiven her for killing you?"

"There are worse things." He shot her a level look from under his brows. "Presenting forgiveness keeps me close. To react fast."

"So. If you are operating a policy of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, what does this say about your relationship with the doctor?"

"It has nothing to do with it. My relationship with the doctor is immaterial, and, in the final analysis, unimportant. Useful, certainly, possibly a complication to overcome." He folded a hand over his face as if in exhaustion to stop a fleeting reaction there being seen or read. "Who knows?"

She looked at him sharply then, realised she had missed something…..

"With Morstan's background, latterly as a black ops freelance," he continued remorselessly, "part of a tough team and the only female: odds are statistically against her taking to domesticity. Or even allowed to by outside factors. Magnussen was just such an outside factor. Logic says there must be others."

"Yes. I agree."

"There is also the additional pressure of her final mission being a failure. It keeps her….looking over her shoulder, waiting for something. The Tblisi incident killed her career - and her team - stone dead. An itch that will need scratching."

"You are not supposed to know about Tblisi. It is a very well kept secret."

"And so it should be," he agreed. "For a siege to occur at such a high risk embassy, and for the ambassador-without-portfolio to be taken; for several rescue attempts to fail, and the final Morstan led one to fail so demonstrably - a contracted last-ditch mission without proper resolution and final debrief…." he broke off and shook his head. "Loose ends. They always flap noisily in the wind. Not good."

"Don't tell me what I already know. The repercussions from that still….echo."

"For you, certainly. For her, especially. Unfinished business rankles."

"You expect her past to get up and bite her?"

"Law of averages. Very few former assassins die peacefully in their beds. She knows this as well as we do."

"So we should expect ….something?"

"To not expect something would be naive. And you have just said repercussions from Tblisi still echo. What did you mean by that?"

She looked away and he watched her think. The thought process took too long, and he felt a shaft of…something. A vague niggle turned over and grew. Instinct fired in the back of his brain. An alarm call.

An instinct he should resist, kill at birth. Kill and walk away from. Kill and walk away from now, before it killed him.

But he was Sherlock Holmes. And he could not do that. He owed John Watson his life, and had made of a public vow of loyalty and protection. To John, to his wife, and to their unborn child. He had to protect them. He had made a vow. His last vow.

She looked on as those cold grey eyes snapped fiercely inward, registered the sudden electricity within him. And she also knew as much as he did that he could not walk away from the danger or the debt he owed and was still repaying. Which was why she hesitated.

"Tell me, Elizabeth. You owe me that, at the very least."

"Nothing to tell you." She tilted her head, dismissive, knowing he was neither satisfied with that answer, nor believed it. "Nothing solid," she conceded, gently angling for his interest whilst appearing not to. "Just whispers."

"Someone out there - we don't know who - is asking about the Tblisi failure. Bizarrely, in connection with Margaret Thatcher. Which doesn't make sense. She was long gone from the political scene by then; nothing she could have done, even if she had been mentally capable at that point, which is debatable. So why start digging now? With nothing to trigger it?

"That's what I mean about nothing solid. Questions about Tblisi? Now, and linking to Thatcher? Nothing make sense."

"No smoke without fire, especially in the security business," he responded automatically. "Or you wouldn't be telling me."

He inhaled, long and slow, and looked at her all the while. He could feel his concentration sharpening, instincts firing.

This was a game changer, he realised. This would negate everything he had said to John Watson the evening before. This would throw him back into action, and into a past that was not his own. Which was always dangerous.

"Are we talking about a lone wolf mission? A wild guess from other mercenaries after a commission? A rogue male? An investigative journalist? Moriarty?"

She met his look for a long moment, then shrugged.

"Don't ask. Because I don't know. This is not your problem. And you don't look fit enough to take the skin off a rice pudding. If you were my employee I would send you for rest and recuperation."

"Pointless remark."

"I know. But I still have to make it. Morstan is neither your guilt nor your responsibility."

"So you say."

Fire flashed behind her eyes, despite the offhand denial, and she concealed that satisfaction from him. She both welcomed his apparently off-hand response yet was appalled by the unspoken commitment of it. By what she recognised as the professional callousness of her own manipulation of him. Highlighting a whisper barely yet heard. And twisting it in the heart he denied having, while he was still weak and, hopefully, a little emotional. Open to influence and inference and interference.

"Don't let her lead you into trouble," she counselled.

"Too late for that remark, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry," she said, and the words were genuine as he reacted and confirmed her instincts. "But she may be a target. And if she turns in self defence….I can't stop you doing whatever you may feel you need to do, can I?"

The personal was at war with the professional behind her impassive exterior. But she had a job to do. And a way to play it. "Just a whisper, Sherlock. But a whisper that niggles. A little warning. That's all."

" All? You have given me a watching brief, Elizabeth." He sighed and half turned, looked away. Muttered, low and pained. "And you have no idea what you are asking of me."

But she chose not to hear those words. Because she wasn't asking him. She didn't need to. His conscientiousness and his loyalty would take him where asking him could not. As they both knew.

She met his eyes then; guarded, decisive, computing already. Hers were sad, resigned, with an element of guilt. But they were in accord now, as much as anyone could be in accord with Sherlock Holmes. This was them. Dancing the dance they both knew too well.

And so she nodded. Swept her papers into the briefcase.

"Stay for supper. Tell me about Denmark. I've never been….."

o0o0o

Twenty minutes. That was all it took for John Watson to hurry to the nearest Tesco and stagger back with two carrier bags full of groceries.

He pushed the door of 221B open with his shoulder, looked up. Dropped the bags in the doorway and tried to think what he should say and feel.

Sherlock Holmes stood by the fireplace, adjusting his shirt and jacket before the mirror. Showered, shaved, smartly dressed. The armour firmly back in place.

He looked up and met John Watson's eyes through the mirror.

"John." An acknowledgement this time, at least. "What are you doing back here.?"

"Someone has to make sure you have food to eat."

"Mrs Hudson…." a dismissive hand waved vaguely.

"Is not your housekeeper," the doctor pointed out, passing into the kitchen to put everything away.

He was placing milk, butter, cold meat and cheese in the refrigerator when he felt Sherlock Holmes come up behind him and stand very close.

"This must stop," he said, voice quiet but firm.

"What must stop?" John Watson, concentrating on such a mundane task, turned with simple enquiry and little concentration.

"This. You. Looking after me."

"Why? It's what I've always done…."

"No longer. I am not a child. You have your new life, responsibilities. A wife to look after and - very soon - a baby."

"Yeah, think I know that. So what's the big deal?" John Watson was almost relaxed; he had heard this before.

"Needed pointing out."

"Noted."

"Go home to your wife, John. Prepare to be ordinary." Sherlock Holmes took out his wallet, flung two twenty pound notes onto the kitchen table.

"What's that for?"

"I owe you. Shopping. "

"Only for shopping. And not forty quid's worth."

"Whatever. I just owe you."

He shrugged and turned away.

"Wait…." John Watson caught an arm, stopped the movement.

"You asked me - just now - what I was doing _back_ here. Were you actually awake when I was here before? Did you hear me talk to you? And just ignored me?"

"No idea what you're talking about."

"No idea what those needle marks are doing on your arm either, I suppose? After you had promised me. Promised me you would never…."

"Oh, be your age. I couldn't sleep. Not your problem any longer."

The admission and the declaration almost broke John Watson's heart but did not surprise him.

"You overdosed and almost died on that plane three weeks ago," he said as gently as possible. "You could have overdosed and died today."

"You exaggerate."

" No. Remember I saved your life only five days ago."

"I saved my life five days ago. You were supposed to stay here. Safe. I made a vow John. Me to protect you. Not the other way round. Not any longer."

"It doesn't work like that, Sherlock."

"It does, It will."

"No, Listen. Listen to me."

He closed the fridge door and stepped closer into Sherlock Holmes's personal space.

"Things are different now, Sherlock. Mary and me are going to be parents. Grown ups. Mad as that seems. But I'm still here for you. You know that, don't you? Holmes and Watson, consulting detectives…."

"No, no longer. Must I point out how your life and Mary's must change? Embrace dull and boring. Best for you. And the child." The sneer was not unexpected, but still upsetting.

"….Shut up! Just…." John Watson felt old and sad, and somewhat desperate. "It's not just about us, you prat. You are part of our family. Grow with us. Be Uncle Sherlock. Happy for us."

Sherlock Holmes stepped back, face twisting.

"There is no such thing as happy, you know that. Happy is an illusion. All that concerns me is your safety. I don't want to be part of your family. I don't want to be Uncle Sherlock."

"You don't have the choice. This isn't about you denying other people, this is about other people loving you. Mary and me, that is." His friend's voice was throttled with unbidden emotion.

"Oh, please! Cheap sentiment makes me vomit."

"No!" John Watson grabbed him by the biceps and shook him. Hard. "Truth. You are such a prat sometimes…." his voice was exasperated. "Such a genius, yet such a prat." He shook his head and looked up into the hard silver stare he knew so well.

"Thank you. Finished your little speech?"

"No. This is simple stuff, Sherlock, even for you. Not dying, not jumping off roofs, not rape or murder. Just the simplest and strongest thing of all….loving and being loved."

"Ridiculous."

"Why? This is what real life is about, Sherlock. Relationships, Friends. All worthwhile and normal. So why the fuck not?"

"Can't. Don't want it. Don't know how!" His head rose, challenging, denying the disappointment in his friend's eyes. "Satisfied? Amused? And before you …. " He glared, angry, vulnerable, oddly lost. " I don't want to learn. And I won't."

The air between them was electric with their different angers. Both forcibly bit back words that would have been hurtful to the other. Breath hissed. John Watson was the one to consciously relax his shoulders, manufacture a smile before saying mildly:

"We are not going to argue just so you can win this one. I actually came round to invite you to supper the day after tomorrow. Mary asked me to ask you."

"No." The answer was instant.

"Don't take your temper out on Mary. She is your friend."

"My friend? She shot me. Remember that, do you?" The acid in his voice would have blistered paint. Or skin. John Watson's skin.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock Holmes spoke first.

"Enough. I have an appointment. Close the door behind you when you leave."

The tone of voice accepted no argument. And he was gone in a cold sweep of coat. The door slammed shut behind him, and it's vibrations echoed around the room long afterwards.

John Watson finally exhaled.

o0o0o

"That red coat is an offence to the eye."

"Shut up, you. It's the only one that still fits me."

Mary Watson stood on the threshold of 221B, grinned up at him and punched him on the arm in mock offence. Amused at the perplexed little-boy frown that caused.

She rested one hand over the enormous baby bump she carried before her, put the other onto Sherlock Holmes' raised arm, which still held the door only half open, barring her way.

"What do you want? Has John sent you? 'Soft talk Sherlock for me, Mary. He won't take any notice of me,'" The mimicry was perfect, but she refused to compliment or be deflected.

"Stop it," she ordered. "Let me in so I can at least sit down and have a rest from carting this baby elephant around."

She grinned again, and after a split second of resistance he lifted his arm so she could pass in front of him. Watched her cross to stand before the fireplace, take the point of command within the room, turn and look at him.

"So this is the elephant in the room now, is it? Baby Watson?"

His voice was icy, and he did not move from the door, and nor did he shut it. Simply waited.

"Don't be obtuse. It doesn't suit you. And don't try to insult me, either." She stood square and challenged him. Mary Morstan. Not Mary Watson.

"You wouldn't take any notice of John, but you will take notice of me. This is my appeal to your better nature, because I know you have one." She smiled at him then. An honest smile, openly affectionate. Making him frown again. "Come and eat with us tomorrow, Sherlock."

"No. Thank you." A short, formal bow of refusal meant he avoided her eyes.

"You don't get it, do you?" Her voice changed subtly; there was steel in it now. "This is not a request. It is an order. From me."

"Why?"

"Let's say, in the spirit of friendship. Because this is probably our last chance before Baby Watson arrives to be we three, together. And it would be nice to eat, relax, chat….."

"Chat? Me?"

"You are no fool, Sherlock Holmes, so don't act like one. Not to me. I know you. And you know I need to talk to you. "

"Then talk, Talk now. Don't involve John."

He finally closed the door. Drifted slowly, cautiously, towards his leather armchair and sat. She sat opposite, in her husband's old Victorian fireside chair. She nodded, then. Drew a deep breath.

"We both do our best to protect John. That unspoken compact between us, always. Loving John. We should have had this talk a long time ago" She back and relaxed with determination. " Will you start? Or shall I?"

"Start? We 'started' a long time ago, Mary. When I came back from the dead. You were so angry. John was your safe refuge while I was dead. Then I wasn't dead any more. I upset your plans. So you instantly decided to become my ally. You'd talk him round, you said."

"And I did."

"Yes. Made me suspicious even then. John never saw what I saw. That you were not what you seemed. But love is blind, apparently. So. First question. Why did you shoot me?

"Oooh. Took you a long time to get round to asking that one."

"Been a bit busy."

" Fair point," she conceded. "Why do you think?

He watched her carefully now. No longer the witty nurse, the smart receptionist. Nor even the pregnant wife. This was role play no longer. The compliment of being allowed to see the real woman, agent and assassin.

"To kill? Or not to kill? To make me suffer? Because I suffered, Mary. I did."

Unexpectedly, she dipped her head, clenched her hands together. Looked back up at him with tears in her eyes. Sherlock Holmes lifted his chin in response, refusing to be gulled.

"I know. I am so sorry, Sherlock. That was not meant to happen."

"Explain."

"The first I knew that Magnussen had found me - was that telegram you read at the wedding. Referring to my parents, calling me 'poppet' signing himself Cam. I could have killed him then. He ruined….." she stopped herself.

"I worked for him before. Strongarmed business rivals, you might say. Until he wanted me to kill for him. When I refused, he threatened.

So I disappeared. Changed my name, appearance, nationality. I'm good at that. After five years he should have forgotten."

"Eidetic memory."

"Really? I didn't know." She shrugged. "That telegram was his treat. He'd get me, in his own time. Victims can defeat themselves with fear, waiting. While he stalked you." She paused.

"His blackmail plan was simple. I kill you, or he kills John. After he had finished …."toying with you," he said. If your brother did not give him what he wanted using your fate as his lever. State secrets, power….

"I had to meet him alone, a night you and John were out and I was free. If I had known where you were, what you were doing….things would have been different.

"I was going to kill him, I was. I couldn't see any other solution to save us all. And he was pleading for his life like the coward and bully he was. Then you arrived. Interrupted things. I realised John would be with you. I had a problem."

"So you shot me," he said. "To show him - and me - your power, your refusal to be bullied by him. To stop me betraying you, even? But then you figured you could not shoot him, because John and I would show on CCTV and be accused. And that would open a whole new can of worms, with the authorities this time. You and your cover would be blown.

"Whereas in fatigues and balaclava no one would recognise you even if your image was captured. You entered through the roof, using surveillance blind spots. You might be chased, but you wouldn't be found. You could perhaps still get away with it. And Magnussen might just be frightened off pursuing you."

She nodded. "I thought …..if he didn't agree to leave me alone, even after he saw me shoot you… then I would kill him anyway. I was so angry.

"I had only meant to wing you, and knew you would have the sense to play dead. But I hadn't used that gun for a long time; it pulled right. Even as the bullet left the barrel I knew I'd done the wrong thing. Hit you centre mass.

"I'm sorry….no time to help you…Because as I turned to kill Magnussen I heard John coming up the stairs. Couldn't shoot then, couldn't let him find me. He had to find _you_. Save _you._ I was calling 999 as I ran…..

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. Really I am. I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I regret nothing in my life as much as killing you."

"You didn't kill me."

"Only because you refused to die. And I owe you. For everything I have. For not ratting me to the police. Putting John and his happiness first."

"Sentimental claptrap. You don't fool me, Mary. You made a simple decision to kill me to protect John "

"You would have done the same. You love him too."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You always pretend to be so heartless. Yet your actions say otherwise." She looked up at him. "Have you fucked him, Sherlock? You before me? Is that why….."

"Of course I haven't! I'm not…..I don't…"

She leant forward then, put her hand on his knee. The understanding in her face was heartbreakingly soft.

He looked into her eyes, at her hand upon him. Spoke before she could.

"You think you can seduce me into silence?"

"I don't want sex with you, Sherlock. Or to use it as a weapon against you. Not that I don't think it would be glorious with you - fire and ice and heartstopping. But I love John, and he is all I need."

"Yet you still need something from me."

"Something rarer and simpler. Something as important. Your friendship."

"What? "

"Your friendship, Sherlock." She sat back in John Watson's chair and smiled.

"You read my file, You know what I am, what I can do. You also know retired mercenaries like me rarely live long after they retire; trouble finds them like iron filings to a magnet."

She shifted closer. Intent. He tried not to flinch as she spoke now.

"There was once a merchant in the famous market of Baghdad," she recited.. "One day he saw a stranger looking at him in surprise. And he knew that stranger was Death. Pale and trembling, the merchant fled the marketplace and made his way - many miles - to the city of Samarra, for there he was sure Death could not find him. But when at last he came to Samarra, the merchant saw, waiting for him, the grim figure of Death. 'Very well, said the merchant. 'I give in, I am yours. But tell me: why did you look surprised when you saw me this morning in Baghdad?'

"'Because,' said Death, 'I had an appointment with you tonight. In Samarra."

"Ridiculous fable. I have never believed in Fate."

"Neither did I. Until recently. Until you defied Death and returned from the dead. Now I can't get Samarra out of my head. I started off thinking it applied to you. After Magnussen….but now I am convinced it applies to me." She looked at him, not flinching.

"You once vowed to keep us safe, John and me and our baby. And you have been doing that. Removing the Magnusson threat once and for all. Well, now you must see I need you close to me. At my side, watching my back. Forever. Or for however long I have."

"Pessimistic of you."

"Law of averages. I might live to a great age, grandchildren on my knee. But I doubt that, somehow. All I want - need more than life itself - and for as long as I want it, is my chance to be normal, for once. An ordinary wife and mother. For me, for John."

"You know I already do that. I don't understand….."

"I need more from you than protection. That's the easy bit." She took his hands in hers, stilled their resistance.

"We are too alike, you and I. Intelligence, decision, objectivity. Courage in action, regardless of the cost. We are more like siblings, Sherlock. We understand each other. We are cleverer than John. No, no, that's not a complaint. He is reactive and a battler, a survivor - different, still good.

"But we are motivators, winners. And to find someone who shares my mindset is as glorious as it is rare." She smiled at him, open, candid, telling her truth.

"We need to become a team, Sherlock. To keep us all safe, make John and the baby happy. Function close up, with infinite awareness. Together we are our best chance for survival. And I am finding that surviving normality is as complex as surviving danger.

"To make our lives work now, I need you to be my friend, brother, partner, colleague. I need you to be happy and laughing and content. Uncle and godfather and babysitter. The quiet benign power in our corner folding your protective arms around us all."

"You have no idea what you are asking of me."

His voice was flat.

"Yes, I do. Because I am asking the same of me. Forcing myself into a humdrum alien world of nappies and shopping and routine. "

"You expect me to join you in that? And yet also watch and wait for danger? Guard you from it?"

"Too much to ask, I know. I'm sorry. But only you can do this. For us, for you."

"I can't do this. I don't have the skills."

 _Domesticity and danger? Babies and barbarity? Guns and gripe water? Baby sitting and shadows? An assassin for a mother and a killer for a father? How would that work?_

 _And where would that put him? Or me? Bouncing a baby while breaking down the Browning? A toddler on the hip with a handgun at the ready?_

"Nor do we," she laughed lightly. "New babies; everyone learns and survives the experience."

"What if you don't survive? What if I can't save you?"

"Then we all die in the attempt. Go down guns and baby bottles blazing. But I will never blame you."

"Don't joke."

"What else can I do? Life is a joke."

"And all things show it." He glared at her. Looked down at his feet, in any direction but into her bright brave eyes.

"I can't do this. You ask too much of me."

"I'm only asking you to be human. Is that so bad? My dearest Sherlock?"

He could hear the tears and the plea in her voice.

 _World crime. Scan world crime, Stay ever alert to risk. Remember Lady Smallwood's words. About Tblisi. About Thatcher. About how these two subjects offered the greatest risk to her and to them. And how he must find the source of the threat, spot the patterns, be ever vigilant, ever on guard. While regarding a baby!_

 _This was madness…_

' _Never let you down… a lifetime ahead to prove it….._

 _My first and last vow. Whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there for you, always, for all three of you….….._

He looked at her and realised it had always been going to come down to this. From that very first evening at _The Landmark_ when her first reaction had been: 'Oh God. You're dead.' hadn't he always known that his first duty was going to be to keep her alive? For John's sake?

And what was so dangerous about trust and acceptance from your best friend's wife? Unless that wife was Mary Morstan nee Agra?

"You have no idea what you are asking of me," he said again. He had said as much to Elizabeth Smallwood too.

 _Two very different aspects of his life ready to collide, to crash and burn….._

She squeezed his hands tightly, stood awkwardly, leant forward and placed a kiss on his forehead. For a moment he looked up at her as she looked down, Her look was soft, intimate. Pleading, almost. His grey and artic, somewhere near the point of collapse.

"You are a good man, Sherlock Holmes. You watch my back, and I'll watch yours. I promise."

And then she walked away. Crossed the room, turned back to smile at him, a hand to her lips. He did not reply nor react. But once she had gone, heavily down the stairs, he went to the window and watched her leave. Did not return the gesture when she looked up, caught his eye, lifted a hand in salutation.

"You have no idea what you are asking of me….no idea," he muttered again. Braced himself. "And so it begins."

He reached for his mobile phone. Began to type.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's notes:**

Piet Bruhl, Pedder Magnussen, Jack (Lady Smallwood's late husband) Ellie, Ari, Fredrik, 'the Ghanian' and Davy Gallagher are OC's from the prequels to this story, _Things We Lost In The Flames_ and _The Magnussen Legacy._

Finn Juhl: Danish architect and designer (1912- 1989)

The Met: London is served by several police forces. The Metropolitan Police - known colloquially, personally and collectively, as The Met or the Yard is the main one, based at New Scotland Yard. London's Police are never called NSYers or Yarders as they are not an American football team.

Every nation has it's own version of a royal pardon. This is Great Britain's.

Tblisi: Capital city of Georgia, with a long and complex history. Has been under Persian and Russian rule and contains over 100 ethnic groups.

Margaret Thatcher: Great Britain's first female Prime Minister between 1979 - 1990.

Samarra: The fable of Samarra is an ancient Mesopotamian tale from the Talmud, and first came to western attention when retold by Somerset Maughan in 1933. Samarra isalso a modern Iraqui city on the east bank of the Tigris river.78 miles from Baghdad, and a World Heritage Site.

'And so it begins.' Best known these days from _The Lord Of The Rings: The Twin Towers_ , the phrase comes from classical literature, The Metamorphoses of Apelius, and translates into the Latin phrase 'sic infit.'


	2. Chapter 2

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 2

 _Oh, the miraculous energy that flows between two people who care enough to get beyond surface and games, who are willing to take the risk of being totally open, of listening, of responding with the whole heart. How much we can do for each other._

 _(Alex Noble)_

Flickering flames from the central candelabra on the dining table gave the room a cosy golden glow. The light shone on the polished cutlery and the immaculate matching napery, the wineglasses.

He was with friends. Expected, invited. He should have been at ease, but instead shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, grasping the paper wrapped wine bottle in his hands more tightly.

"You have gone to a great deal of trouble," he observed stiffly.

The low mellow lighting threw his face into a series of deep shadows, making his appearance seem gaunt and severe.

"You're worth it," she said lightly, turning to greet him, awkward and ungainly now, with the baby bump almost at full term. Her husband's hand in the small of his back propelled him forward as he hesitated, and he found himself passed from one Watson to the other and into her careful hug.

He returned the gesture as briefly as possible and stepped away. Their earlier conversation unforgotten yet unspoken.

"So pleased to see you. Lovely you decided to come after all," she said smoothly, more used to his ways, now, not referring to their earlier conversation. "We appreciate it."

"Why?" That perplexed little frown.

"Sherlock…." John Watson's breath in his ear was part amusement, part warning. "Just be nice, now. Sociable."

"I don't do sociable. Things like this." Even he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. But if the Watsons heard it, both chose to ignore it.

He floundered a little, thrust the wrapped bottle of wine into her hands. Anything was better than a hug.

"Oh! You shouldn't have," she responded automatically, rolling back the brown paper wrapper and regarding the label. "This is a rather expensive red Zinfandel, isn't it?"

"Well…" he said fluttering his hands a little. " Highly regarded certainly. From Howell Mountain in California's Nappa Valley. A ripe, high alcohol content wine, full of raspberry notes, warm and peppery, fifteen percent ABV, from original Croatian and Italian stock…."

"Shush," she said, smiling softly at him, capturing his face with one hand and putting a kiss on his cheek. "Sounds lovely - shame I can't drink it with you."

"Oh! I thought of that." He stumbled quickly to reply, producing a green glass bottle from his coat pocket. "Organic elderflower presse."

She took that too, smiling at the thoughtfulness..

"You are a genius. Talk to John while I see to the food…won't be long."

She left the room with her booty, and John Watson put out his hands to take the Belstaff and scarf, which he hung on the rack by the door, gesturing to his friend to sit and relax.

He sat, but did not relax. Hated the domesticity closing in around him, the social smiling directed his way.

"So…..I assume you have returned to work," he said, filling the silence before ordinary social chitchat swamped him, anything to stop John Watson's polite smile. "Any interesting cases?"

"Routine, really. Not as interesting as yours."

Smalltalk. He - they - were making small talk. _Hateful_.

"Working on that. Been too long away from the beating heart of London, cases for Lestrade. Getting back into the swing of things, yes."

As he nodded and spoke his mobile phone chirruped, and he reached into his jacket pocket without apology and looked at it. Frowned a little, texted a brief reply.

"No rest for the wicked," John Watson tried for a joke, hiding the seriousness of his interest, filling the void of his friend's response. "You finally came back into communication with the world, then. Anything there for me?"

"Not unless you are an expert on Margaret Thatcher."

"The former Prime Minister? Politics. Not my field, sorry."

"Not mine either. But there are connections, To a case." He added. Realised he had said too much.

 _Have I just given too much away? Will John know the connection there might be with Mary? Would Mary know and realise I am seeking the connection and the danger? No. I am over thinking, But, still….._

Paused. Deflected Explanation as a sort of apology. "I have set alerts. Lots of alerts."

"Want to tell me about them?"

"No."

There was a brief and heavy silence. John Watson broke it, feeling awkward and hurt, oddly dismissed and his words became unusually formal.

"Thanks for coming tonight. I know it's not your thing. Being sociable. Chatting."

"Mary wanted me here. I don't know why."

"She likes you. And we …..wanted to ask you something."

"Something you could not ask me by email or text? That would have been easier. Not taking all this trouble." He flapped a dismissive hand, did not keep an edge from his voice. "Cooking. Pretty table. All. That. Domesticity."

"Because…."

He did not find out at that point, because Mary called them to the table.

She had indeed gone to a great deal of trouble with the meal. Tiny home made crab cakes with laver bread as a starter, an old fashioned Hungarian goulash with jacket potatoes and broccoli, lemon sorbet. Intricate yet unadorned.

The Watsons ate heartily and Sherlock Holmes, as ever, toyed with his food, avoided eye contact and offered minimal input to conversations he did not want to have, about a request he did not want to hear.

John Watson's watched the long slim hands fiddle with cutlery, look down into the untouched wine glass, and found his heart ached for his friend. So strong, so brave, yet so inadequate dealing with ordinary aspects of life most people never even thought about, and certainly did not worry over as he did.

The conversation drifted to a halt half way through the goulash. The hosts had run out of subjects to try to tempt their guest into sharing.

"Why did you want me here tonight?" Sherlock Holmes asked into the hanging silence. "Not as if I'm good at this. I don't …" he hesitated on the word as if ashamed of identifying the problem, of vocalising it, "socialise."

"This isn't socialising. It's only us," John Watson pointed out calmly.

"But you claim my friendship. Isn't socialising - this - what friends do?"

"We wanted you here because we have something special to ask you. A favour."

"What? Why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. Because we love you. " she said.

"Because we would be honoured," her husband seconded helpfully.

"I don't understand."

"We can't think of anyone better. There isn't anyone better….." she said with quietly devastating sincerity.

He looked up at her sharply then. That little frown again. The top lip curled back a little in disbelief.

"There really must be. Whatever it is." .

"We want you to be godfather. To our baby. To be her Uncle Sherlock properly. Formally." John Watson was grinning, even though his friend turned to him, aghast. "Please?" he added. Unsure and uncertain now where he had been confident before.

" I can't…you can't…no. Not me." He half rose to meet the panic in his head, then sat back down again.

"Who else but you, you idiot? When we owe you so much?"

She spoke with a gentle exasperation and reached a hand forward and delicately traced a finger along his jaw. To her surprise he endured the touch. Looked up and met her eyes briefly. Looked away without giving her anything to read in his face, not wanting to see anything of warmth in hers. "How else can we show you what you mean to us?" she persisted. "When words won't do?"

"You already have my vow." Clipped, harsh words verging on anger. Hands braced against the table edge, as if about to rise and leave. "My protection. The three of you, for always. Have you forgotten I killed Magnussen for…. " he broke off abruptly. Began again, even harsher now. "I don't need an outmoded role from religious dogma as some form of recompense."

"You don't. But we do. Formal, public recognition of all you have done for us. How much we value you. And how our baby will, too."

"Shut up, John."

Without looking at his friend he turned to the friend's wife.

"Was this your idea? To morally shackle me even closer to you? As if…."

"Stop it," she said, standing, leaning across the table, swiftly putting her hands around his face and kissing him on the lips to stop his bitter words. "Just stop it, you silly man. This is not about you, or even us. It is about the child."

"You pass me your burden as a gift, now?"

"You're getting the idea," she said, kissing the tip of his nose and releasing him. Her smile was warm and, as far as he could tell, without guile. Which disconcerted him.

"W-what are you going to call her?" he fumbled for safer and more distant ground.

"We were thinking Catherine," John Watson said, smiling again now.

"Catherine?" he repeated. "Some dynamic Catherines in the world. Russia's Catherine the Great - ruthless power complex. Overthrew her husband. Catherine de Medici, ruthless politician and mother; Catherine de Braganza, who introduced the English to tea drinking; Catherine of Siena, saint and tortured martyr; Royalist plotter Katherine Stanhope. See a pattern emerging?"

"You don't fool me. Sherlock still isn't a girl's name." John Watson made a very deliberate joke to lighten the mood.

The two men finally grinned at each other, unexpectedly sharing the accord of joint memory, of a conversation on a cold and windswept airfield. A farewell that turned out to be anything but. Scant weeks since then. And yet so much had happened in between.

"William is your real first name; William Sherlock Scott Holmes." John Watson mused, eyes dancing at having finally made real contact with his best friend for the first time that evening. "We could call her Wilhelmina. The female version.

"Wilhelmina Sherlockiana….." Mary Watson added, lips twitching with repressed humour, joining in the game. "Like Gloriana. But Sherlock."

"Wilhelmina Sherlockiana Scotia….." John Watson continued.

"…Nova Scotia…" offered his wife. "Watson."

They were laughing. Breaking out into giggles. Not teasing nor taunting, but sharing the absurdity of it. Ridiculous prospective names for their child.

"You can't saddle a baby with a name like that," John Watson objected. "She'd have to be known as Willie for short."

"Willie Watson?" his wife spluttered. "Wee Willie Winkie Watson! Oh! Perfect!"

And suddenly the tension was gone, replaced with smiles, tentative laughter. The room warm and homely and relaxed.

They both looked towards their friend, and for one moment they saw him vulnerable and puzzled.

"Is that a joke?" he asked. A little lost, a little haughty, poised to retreat.

"Yes!" they giggled together. And finally - finally - he joined in. A tremulous smile wobbling into joining their shared laughter. Something very simple and so ordinary and yet so devastating.

 _Is this it? Is this what being part of a family feels like? Funny and free? No judgement. Relaxed and ridiculous? Warm and safe and sharing? And yet…._

 _How dangerous and weakening is that? Oh. Jesus Christ._

He smiled. To mollify them, to convince himself. And hepushed away the premonition of a new fear that threatened to take his breath away.

o0o0o

Mycroft Holmes opened the double doors from the hall and stepped into the sanctuary of his library, the only light the glow of the fire banked in the open hearth. Closed the doors softly behind him and loosened his bow tie with a tired sigh.

3am Wednesday morning. He had been up since 5am Tuesday. He eased his shoulders, crossed the room and rippled a casual hand across the keys of the Broadwood baby grand piano as he passed it, lifted the decanter of Armagnac Delord Hors D'age from the chiffonier, and poured.

Passed a quarter full snifter of the twenty five year old brandy to the figure in the ox blood judge's armchair by the fire opposite his own. Sat down and deliberately exhaled.

"Aren't you beyond boring receptions at South American embassies?" came the baritone drawl from the other chair.

"Networking is never wasted. Adds to the pool of general and specific knowledge….." the host shrugged. Sipped. Felt the liquid gold warm his insides and deliberately relaxed his shoulders. "Why are you here?"

"To talk about your networking. So appropriate, don't you think?. And in the same breath and tone: "Tell me about Tblisi."

"Why? And why are you here?"

"I am your little brother and it is best to humour me."

"Why?" Mycroft Holmes asked again.

Sherlock Holmes rolled the armagnac around his tongue but did not answer directly.

The conversation he had had with John Watson earlier that evening, that had brought him, nerves jangling and needing information only Mycroft Holmes could provide, was not for his brother's ears or knowledge. Nor his too agile brain.

o0o0o

"It's no good; I've got to go to bed. I'm exhausted. And my back's killing me." Mary Watson rose from the dining table, pale and with a hand clamped to the small of her back. "Need to lie down. I'll wash up in the morning. Goodnight, Sherlock. See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Mary,"

The door closed and the two men looked at each other.

Being so heavily pregnant is getting to her," John Watson apologised. "Always tired. Backache."

"Clearly."

He was rising to leave the table when he was stilled by John Watson's hand on his arm, detaining him.

"You don't have to go yet. Want to say thank you…..".

"For what?"

"This. All of it. Mary was so thrilled….." he watched Sherlock Holmes turn away to hide the expression on his face. But kept talking while he had the chance and the privacy. "Coming to dinner. Being nice. Agreeing to be godfather."

"I've agreed to nothing."

John Watson knew that flat hard tone only too well. But not usually directed towards himself. So for a moment he was stunned as Sherlock Holmes withdrew his arm, surged to his feet, was almost at the door to the hall before he could be stopped.

But Watson was suddenly there, between consulting detective and door handle, and up too close. The lapels of the consulting detective's elegant charcoal jacket scrunched between his fists.

"What the fuck is the matter with you, Sherlock? What's this about? Why the hell can't you just be human? Just for once? For us? For me?"

Trying to shout quietly so Mary can't hear was not a good plan, he thought belatedly. Peering up into Sherlock Holmes' furious face was not to be recommended either.

"And don't look at me like that! Talk to me!"

There was something behind the grey slanted eyes, in the uplift of the head, that should have warned John Watson not to push the issue. But he was angry after years of handling Sherlock Holmes' graceless behaviour that was suddenly something else now and more personal to him, and upset by all his wife's efforts to make the evening go well, her pain and discomfort.

"John….."

"No! Enough deflection! Bloody talk to me!"

"Please…"

He should have known - and stopped - then. And backed away. Because Sherlock Holmes never said please.

"Talk!"

A deep breath that took half a breath too long, watching Sherlock Holmes draw his shoulders back, and up, and become implacable. The deadly forensic glare that went with it. John Watson knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"If you had to marry someone - instead of coming back to me - why couldn't you have married someone normal? A nice girl who just wanted babies and a happy home?"

The harsh whisper could not have bled with more repressed anger and hurt. Of contained and throttled anguish. Of words held back for too long.

John Watson stepped back as if burnt. Watched his hands uncurl from the jacket and drop as if belonging to someone other.

"Not that you had much choice, did you? Between a high functioning sociopath or a killer?

"But why did you have to actually go and marry a bloody assassin? And just to put the icing on the wedding cake, be a total idiot and make her pregnant? the words drove remorselessly on, repressed for too long.. "An assassin who will be the death of us all, John. Not just herself."

The fist had formed and was flying to it's target. Except Sherlock Holmes was faster and stronger. Always faster and stronger, John Watson thought with a sort of despair. Always harder and harder.

John Watson's fist was caught and stopped while still on it's way to the face, and with an insolent flick Sherlock Holmes twisted the swift attacking hand and the entire arm away and down, forcing his friend sideways to feel as if he had just slammed his fist into a wall, not his best friend's powerful right hand.

Reaction jerked the doctor into desperately clawing at the lean chest before him with his free hand to remain upright.

"This baby will make us all vulnerable," the words continued as if without interruption. "Wake up, John! For God's sake wake up! You're a soldier. Worked with me. Why can't you see it? Take your brain out of your trousers and just see the situation we are in!"

"You utter bloody monster! You truly are some freak. You've not been right in the head since you were shot….." John Watson struggled to free his hand. Angry at not succeeding, at returning the hurt he felt so deeply

"And you think I don't know that? How dare you even…..? When we all know who shot me!"

"Mary…"

"Mary. Yes. Very good, you remembered." The harsh sarcasm was calculated to wound. Then evaporated suddenly, the words stumbling now "Everything comes back to Mary. Or why else would we be arguing like this? And I hate doing this. Hate it. "

And John Watson could see that now. Anguish in the face. Desperation and sadness.

"Sherlock! I didn't…I'm sorry….."

"Shut up. I don't want to hear your pathetic apologies or excuses. I'm just trying to keep you - her - us - the baby - alive."

"But it's over." John Watson, his fist unfurled and released now, shook his head. "Magnussen's dead. His brother is in jail. Why are you still being like this?"

"Get your head out of your arse." The voice stayed quiet, harsh only in it's truth. "Mary is an assassin. There is no 'was' about it. Assassins never retire, whatever they may say. And if they try, you can bet there is going to be someone ready to chase them down as soon as they drop their guard. People resent assassins, never forget what they do. I have no idea why. Perhaps it is revenge calling."

A wry twist to the face looking down at his friend with a strange mixture of anger and compassion.

"She doesn't…."

"What do you know? You don't even know her real name. You never read her AGRA file. You have no idea who your wife is. Because she apparently leapt out of an egg in front of you, fully formed. And you are such an idiot you never questioned that. Then or now."

"That's not fair! But you - you always know it all, don't you? You stole that file and you read it."

"Someone had to. Some freak or other."

John Watson slumped.

"Sherlock, what the hell is all this? What are we arguing about? None of this is new…."

"And none of this will stop unless I stop it. Or unless your wife is dead."

"Don't say that! Just. Don't. Is someone really after her?"

"I don't know yet. But I will. I don't like not knowing. Cheer up. I might be wrong."

"You had better be. Because I don't like this."

"Leave the worrying to me. Concentrate on being a dad. I'm told it is a worthwhile contribution to society."

"Yes, Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to shout at you….you know…."

"It doesn't matter. Let's just say being an expectant father is playing on your nerves."

"Yes, but…"

"But nothing. I still owe you my life, I made a vow. That's all."

But how do we go on now, Sherlock? From all this? Of me nearly hammering you?"

"We just go on. Day by day. You have a temper, but you won't hammer me. I know you too well."

And he was gone. With a distant little smile and a pat on the shoulder.

And this time John Watson let him. But did not like the taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the meal he had just eaten.

o0o0o

So now Sherlock Holmes pulled his mind from what had happened earlier, and how he had said too much and too late, and concentrated on the shadowy figure of his brother. Who was speaking.

"As I asked you before. Why are you here?"

"To stop you avoiding talking to me about Tblisi. I did ask nicely."

"Why ask me at all?"

"It's an interesting city. One of the world's most significant crossroads, where east meets west. And where, I recall, you served in the embassy for six months."

Mycroft Holmes rolled his snifter between his palms and looked down into the glass before asking, as if with mild enquiry:

"Has Elizabeth Smallwood spoken to you?"

"She may have."

"Hmn."

He played for time taking another sip of brandy. Looked across at his younger brother, assessing.

They had not met nor spoken since Denmark, since the efforts of both to save Sherlock's life, to remove villains. A capture, a kill and Mycroft's trusty swordstick.

He was tired, and drained, but that did not stop his instincts sounding an alarm as he peered through the darkness.

The glow from the fire framed Sherlock's face in broad planes - high cheekbones, hooded eyes, the mobile mouth an expressionless line. But the bodyline was tense, and although one knee was crossed nonchalantly over the other, the suspended right foot was minutely tensing and releasing. His brother found the slight movement hypnotic.

"Whispers of gossip mean nothing. This is all very tenuous. Wait until you hear something solid about Tblisi before you react."

"By then it may be too late. And Elizabeth has already reacted."

"This is not Moriarty, Sherlock. He would be playing you before anyone else. Boasting. And he has no connection to Morstan that we know."

"Unless he was being paid. Unless he is not really dead. The jury is still out on that one."

"Stop it. You have done what you were contracted to do. Taken out Magnussen. Both Magnussens."

"Magnussen recognised Mary Morstan as Agra, so someone else could. Someone else with motive."

"Not your business. Not your wife. Not your friend. Not your responsibility."

There was a heavy silence. Mycroft waited.

"I made a vow." Four words.

The British government clicked his tongue in frustration.

"How many times must I tell you caring is not an advantage before you listen to me?"

"I don't….care. Not like that. But I made a vow. To keep John safe. His wife safe. Their child."

"You are a fool."

"Nevertheless. I made a vow and I must stand by it."

"You are a fool."

" Permit me to point out that stopping Magnussen did not just save Mary and John Watson, but saved you, too."

"I haven't forgotten. I just know when to stop the game."

"Then also stop trying to prove you are an utter bastard and help me."

"Why ever should I do that, brother mine?"

"Because I am your brother. Because it is important to me. Because saving her may just save me, too. So I am still around to save you. Again."

"You are looking for a needle in a haystack. Tilting at windmills. Jumping the gun. Stepping off an edge. Oh, hang on. You've done that before. And look how well that turned out." The spiteful words that were not spite goaded no visible reaction.

"You owe me, Mycroft. And whatever you say, the Tblisi situation remains unfinished business, not just for Mary, but the British government. Do the decent thing before I break your teeth."

There was a long silence, the fire coals shifted. They both drank some brandy. And Mycroft Holmes capitulated.

"I expect you want to go to Tblisi on some wild goose chase? See what - if anything - you can find? "

"Seems reasonable."

The British government pushed back in his chair. Lifted his chin and stared down his nose at his little brother.

"I am not going to let you kill yourself over this woman. Her life is not worth yours. Not by any measure. Nor is John Watson's. Only you have value. Only you are irreplaceable. Are you listening to me?"

"Of course. Which also means you can't mess this up for me either."

"You need to talk to Siri. I shall facilitate that."

"Siri?"

"Siri. Code name Sirius." Mycroft Holmes gave a brief nod. " But you will be careful. Circumspect. Low key. Or this will not work. Georgia remains sensitive. "

"So am I. And right now I need more of that excellent brandy."

o0o0o

"If this gets any better, I'm going to get two knives."

He made the declaration to the room, voice loud yet deliberately off hand, hoping someone would take notice. And to emphasise his words he slammed the old jack knife back into his post pending file impaled on the mantelpiece.

Three days after the evening meal at the Watson's flat, this was the first time they had all been together since. Since strong words had been spoken. And were now being ignored, however heavily they hung between the two men.

 _They need to know how busy I am. How absorbed in the work. How I do not need their company, or assistance or support. That I am fine. Everything is fine. I am just very, very busy. And not to be distracted. Not by companionship or friendship or care. No. Not now._

She just looked up at him when he spoke - that quizzical old fashioned look from under her brows he was coming to recognise as her silent version of ' _don't bullshit me, Sherlock Holmes.'_

Leant towards him to emphasise that assessment, that new silent communication they shared now, their complicity to protect John Watson at all costs - and then she groaned, Clamped a hand behind her and muttered a curse as she moved across to the window, as if the very motion would help her breathe.

 _Baby backache. Boring. But at least she doesn't know about the argument with John. Or she would have mentioned it. Nothing if not brave. Dangerous still. And foolish. Hoping for the best. Never thinking to expect the worst. Gone soft, has she, with marriage and motherhood? Or just pressed the pause button? Time will tell._

But despite that distraction of sudden pain she knew, and he knew, that he already had that second knife. She had bought it for him for his birthday.

So he had the fleeting and disconcerting feeling she had read him, knew exactly what he was doing. Deflecting, defending, defying the very presence of the baby, his involvement with it, and their involvement with him.

The more he had tried to remove himself from their orbit over the past few days, the closer they had both clung to him. Not with emotion or dramatics, but with a calm, smiling pragmatism that was impossible to rebut. As if they needed the strength and support of someone close yet not involved in their little yet life changing domestic drama. As if they needed him, and no-one else, for something so simple

Her husband, typing news of the latest cases onto the Sherlock Holmes' blog at the dining table, took no notice of either of them. For the best, really. And he also had too many tales to tell after their enforced hiatus over Christmas and New Year, and he had been writing with fierce concentration for some time.

Facts and happenings, and the cases Sherlock had come up with to cover his time away from 221B since Christmas. To cover time missing after the death of Magnussen, of solitary confinement, of illness and pursuit, of another Magnussen and drama in Denmark.

And if no-one questioned the silliness of a missing horseshoe and a hunted Mona Lisa and the general weird uniqueness that is Brighton - then they deserved such silly stories. True, yet trite - and right now the sillier the better.

 _Which Mona Lisa is real? Indeed - which of the many copies is the real studio copy? The one of value? Even the experts disagree. We shall never know. A true and delicious mystery._

' _For want of a nail the shoe was lost….' The lost sport of throwing horseshoes… the weight and sharp speed of a travelling horseshoe…of an American with a grudge picking up the first thing to hand when arguing in a stableyard…of reviving a long forgotten and lethal childhood skill in instinct for self preservation. A simple case for simple blog readers….._

 _Wrap truth in lies and stack lies behind the truth and any sleight of hand is possible. Move left, feint right. Sinister - dexter indeed._

 _Just listen. Just watch me. Then look away. Concentrate on my honest workman John Watson….._

 _Oh. For pity's sake! What now?_.

"It pays to advertise," John Watson offered levelly, concentrating on his task and justifying it.

"So what about Moriarty then?"

Mary Watson, distracting herself from a temporary yet almost constant pain, dragged him back to reality. Rubbing the bump before her all the while. The gesture was becoming habit. He looked away.

Then grinned; that wolfish grin that tugged his eyes and his expression into strange feral lines.

 _Quite so, Mary. Good thinking. Bloody good question. If it keeps you distracted from the real problem, that's fine._

"Oh, I have a plan." He switched on the manic Sherlock persona, filled his voice with unanswerable glee. Feinting left. "I'm going to monitor the underworld. Every quiver of the web will tell me when the spider makes his move." He couldn't bring himself to say the name. Didn't need to.

 _If she wanted to think Moriarty, let her. Don't let her think about Agra and Tblisi and the possibility of threat. New threat. Past threat. Past catching up with the present. Don't let her know! Let it all come to ME! Not her, not the Watsons! Just ME!_

 _To me to solve and resolve. The very same game plan. Just without Moriarty in it. For now._

He looked down at his phone again as it vibrated it's clarion call. Tweeted back. Answered texts and alerts. Total focus.

Strain around his eyes. The speed of all this was becoming manic and all encompassing, she thought, watching him. Was he really obsessing on Moriarty? He looked older, she thought, banking down a shaft of fear. Old and strained. My fault?

She knew he had had a terrible few weeks, events both he and John had wanted to protect her from. And right now she felt so ill and so tired, she let them.

All this could worry her if she let it. But there was a baby to think about. And this was Sherlock Holmes. He needed neither her concern nor her consideration. Yet she could…..

"Basically your plan is to just sit there solving crimes like you always do?" John Watson's question was a welcome interruption. Grounding and sane, as ever, a touchstone of normality.

"Awesome, isn't it?" He almost preened, almost overacting _._

 _Were they just going to accept his excuses, all this internet activity? Because they had so much of their own affairs to think about just now? Birth and babies…..All this investigation from afar, that they could not know or meddle with? Or have to be told about? Just Sherlock doing his usual manic obsessive thing with his phone and his laptop and his brain working overtime…._

Another overbright smile, a step back to the mantelpiece to withdraw the top letter.

The movement drew their attention. He did not tell them of all these new alerts he had set up as he attempted, in new and other forms, to keep his vow to protect and save the three Watsons.

How Lady Smallwood's admission has sown a seed, to roll forward the little Chinese whispers about Tblisi and Agra and Margaret Thatcher that grew and developed, and how the questions being asked, were all turning into….his own questions being asked. Louder, just as insistent. Better connected.

Questions about the very questions.

Thatcher and Agra and Tblisi. Their links. If there were links. Links he would find. If they existed.

Grantham. Finchley. Somerville. Oxford. Falklands. Kesteven.

Chemistry and X-ray crystallography.

Conservative party connections. Parliamentary lobbies.

Thatcher and Roberts family connections. Dennis and Mark and Carol. Big business, doubtful foreign trade links and chicanery. Celebrity journalism. Muddied reality. Magnussen? Moriarty?

Tiflis. Silk Road. Kartli-Kakheti. Tblisi. Georgian Mafia. Rose Revolution. South Ossetia War. Siege. Georgian media. New British Embassy. Tblisi. Former British Embassy Tblisi. Agra.

Numerous email and internet alerts. Links as fumbling as fog, or as bright as rainbows, perhaps as tenuous as butterflies. How a butterfly could lift a wing in the Amazon and it' effect felt elsewhere. Chaos theory. The butterfly effect phenomenon whereby a minute localised change can effect a greater change in the universe.

 _221Bringit!_ he had tweeted. Multiple times to multiple destinations. Demand and dare and drama. Waited for news to pour in. And pour in it did, however tenuous may be the connection. Every connection to be tested and probed… to search for the source of the whisper and the danger. Track and trail and capture it.

So it all began with a Dusty Death. The wife who brought her case and tragedy to 221B. Mourning the dead husband whose body was recovered from the sea off Falmouth. Looking for answers.

A husband post mortem found had drowned in sand, not water. Lungs full of unique oolitic sandstone from a unique quarry near Grantham. Egg shaped granules of sedimentary rock in a band across the English Midlands.

Just a four, finally. A murderous boss facing a blackmailing human resources manager. Accident more than intent. Nothing to do with Thatcher. Or Agra. Back to the beginning.

"Superficial," Sherlock had pronounced. Solved from his armchair. Not a five, just a four. Good enough for the blog, though. Next! Next?

Next came Conservative Party local organiser Hatherley, nursing an amputated thumb when he came to 221B. Exactly how he came by the wound was at first confusing. Sherlock examined the evidence bag with the thumb in it. ….with intense concentration then frustration….

"Come back! Wrong thumb!" But by then the door was slamming downstairs as Lestrade was running to catch the culprit. The serial killer working in Finchley whose signature was a removed thumb. A thumb that was not actually Hatherley's

And how the mystery became….not how Hatherley escaped with his life. But how Hatherley himself, feigning innocence through self inflicted injury, was revealed as the murderer.

Had slipped sharpening his knives…..while removing rivals and framing his cleverer and more handsome brother while succumbing to his own temptation to kill. Using the accident for his own benefit. Conservative, but no links to Thatcher.

Then there was Dennis Parkinson. Somehow in two places at the same time - _"It's never twins, John!"_ \- and was murdered in one of them. Except the murder, and the alibi, were both skilfully edited surveillance film…..by his Georgian born wife. Who, sadly, was only born in Tblisi, but did not live or work there. A murder solved, another false trail. No connections to the Tblisi siege.

Earlier that morning the Watsons had watched, hypnotised, at Sherlock tapping away at one laptop while juggling two conference calls at once - solving crimes for DI's Hopkins and Dimmock - skyping and talking and deducing while Mary and John looked on in increasing astonishment. Which became horror, then a sort of hypnotised suspended animation..

Watched him also tweeting at the same time.

Husband and wife exchanged looks. At the manic glint in Sherlock Holmes' eyes, the sheen of sweat on his brow, the rarely seen stubble on his cheeks. The hollows above his eyes, the stark cheekbones. The less than tidy and pristine clothing. Something almost hysterical, almost obsessed in his bearing, his presence, his thought process.

They shook their heads at each other. There were used to seeing him work at high speed and intensity. But yet now -something was just not right. While Sherlock seemed unaware of the change. Of their scrutiny. Hard at work, getting results.

As normal. Whatever passed as normal in Sherlock Holmes' head.

Perhaps it was just workload. Perhaps it was a conscientious determination to make up for lost time - for the four weeks that had been ripped from his usual schedule by the death of one Magnussen and the arrest of another. By the demands on mind and body that had been made in that time. His friends looked for excuses. Of course they did.

John Watson was painfully aware that he didn't know the half of it. Not really. Eveeen though his friends angry words had been a clarion call. So now he shook his head at his wife and made a slight mollifying movement of his hand.

 _Not yet…not here…._

He turned back to his friend. Some discussion was going on now about lymph nodes, an unidentified decomposing torso, tattoo ink, and a murderous canary trainer. It was all above his head.

"I never guess," Sherlock breathed confidently into one of the laptop screens, and closed it down.

"Of course he's the killer," Sherlock insisted to the other screen, the other detective, about the other case, almost without even hesitating to take a breath.

"Didn't see that coming," replied Inspector Hopkins. John Watson watched the screen and thought yet again how much she looked like Janine Hawkins - the long dark hair, the sultry eyes - and how long ago that false engagement and the shooting of Sherlock Holmes seemed.

And how the pain of that twisted his heart again. His wife shooting his best friend. Yet here they were….

He closed down that train of thought. Wondered if there was something between Hopkins and Sherlock? Or if it was just her wishful thinking that made her consult with him so often now? Arrive at Baker Street without appointment clutching files, appealing for help?

So much had changed in the brief time since the cataclysmic happenings at Christmas.

"Naturally," Sherlock confirmed, brusque as normal. Closed her screen down with a sense of finality. Both the Watsons heard him mutter something that sounded remarkably like: "Norwich canaries are not related to Grantham gingerbread….." and the words trail away.

What was that about? Would they ever know?

"Sherlock," John Watson's doctor's voice came now without conscious thought. Almost gentle, trying to persuade. "You can't go on spinning plates like this "

Sherlock Holmes eyes widened as he looked up from his phone.

"That's it! The plate was spinning!" And his eyes fell back to the screen.

John Watson had no idea what new line of thought he had just triggered. Or answered. Thought it best not to ask. Still wanted to throw Sherlock Holmes' new phone at the wall. Should never have worried about the delay in restoring telephone communication; because he was making up for lost time now. And John Watson was starting to worry about it.

He reluctantly bent back to the blog he was working on.

 _Joel Fentiman was found strangled in the bedsit he shared with his brother. They had always got on well and there was no sign that the situation had changed….."_

He typed, paused, looked up. Remembered the distraught interview with the surviving brother the day before. About the marks on his brother's neck, and about the heart medication that could induce amnesia…He sighed, mentally drained, and decided to put that case in the pending file.

In that file he glanced - surprised - to see the start of a new entry. Written by Sherlock himself. An entry he had never seen before.

Read the first line before he stopped and closed it down in horror and something like shock.

" _We could never have known there was a potential assassin lurking close by. An assassin who turned out to be…"_

He dragged in a deep breath. Waited until his speeding heart rate slowed.

"Let's take a break," he suggested in a casual voice that sounded like his own.

"Cuppa, anyone?"

o0o0o

And then it was another day. As the new disquiet in his heart got worse.

Only Sherlock Holmes could solve the murder of a Billingsgate Fish Market porter who had been stabbed, but whose dying breath said a bullet had been to blame.

John Watson had followed him into the new case, leaving his wife resting at home and muttering about being fed up waiting. Because he was fed up waiting too.

"One for you here, mate," Lestrade had said. He had been perplexed, and rightly so. But within minutes Sherlock had identified the murderer as Francis Pike whose accountancy firm further along Trafalgar Street worked for many of the market businesses and who had been juggling several tax scams the newly deceased Darrell Vowles had challenged him about.

The explanation of those strange dying words had been simple - to Sherlock at least - when they discovered Darrell Vowles had been a movie buff and a keen American car fan. For the answer involved Steve McQueen, a legendary car chase around the streets of San Francisco, knowledge of pseudonyms and why Bullit was really Clancy and Pike was really Fish.

The explanation made John Watson's head spin. But he was now being constantly distracted by his wife's backache, sleeplessness and short temper. So when she had cursed her bump yet again, had told him to give her a bit of peace, and join Sherlock to solve that very simple murder case - "but be back by six, because tea would be at seven - bring Sherlock, the meal will stretch" - he had gone without a qualm.

After delays, by seven o'clock in the evening they were just barrelling up the stairs to 221B. Satisfied at the end result, elated with their success against the odds, laughing comfortably together, and for a moment it was just like the old days.

John Watson felt the memories of the past tug at his heart. Stepped into the cosy fug of his old home. But before the wave of nostalgia could crash over him there was that voice behind him. Interrupting.

"Rare, dangerous, highly poisonous…"

"Not a murderer then? But a jellyfish?"

"I know."

"You can't arrest a jellyfish!"

"Well, you could try!"

"We did try!"

And then, still laughing, John Watson pulled out his mobile, stood stock still in the doorway and just said: "Oh, God."

"Mary?" enquired the voice behind him.

"Fifty nine missed calls, " Watson said, all concentration on the screen.

"We're in a lot of trouble," Sherlock Holmes commented, and as one they turned and ran back down the stairs.

Back to John's Lexus, parked round the corner. An almost silent drive to the garden flat. Mary, standing transfixed in the kitchen in a pool of liquid, clutching the edge of the sink; terrified to move.

"I bent to put our meal in the oven. The waters broke. I've been feeling strange all day. Thought it was just another off day, She's really not due for another week…"

Calling for an ambulance brought the news that response would be slow due to a pile-up on the Westway; and that it might be quicker to bring 'Mum' into hospital themselves.

They agreed it was a good idea. But then the contractions started. While in the car.

John Watson, driving, kept glancing back into the rear of the car, chasing logistics and human biology. To his wife, braced in a corner, being very vocal about the pain.

"Ow! OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod…" like a litany. Prayer and plea both.

Moving, writhing, arching in pain, she pressed her hands high against the roof of the car. That did not ease the discomfort. She clutched Sherlock Holmes, next to her in the rear seat and being no help whatsoever. Blanking out her agony, disinterested, concentrating on his phone and attempting to ignore everyone and everything else.

Even the risk of a baby being delivered into his lap did not change his focus.

"Relax," the expectant father said from the driving seat in an attempt to be reassuring and calm. "It's got two syllables," he heard himself add, for no reason at all. Unless to hear the sound of what calm should sound like. Or to alleviate tension with a feeble joke.

"I'm a nurse, darling," came the saccharine sweet, slightly sarcastic reply. "I think I know what to do…." A pause. Then another sharp contraction.

A gasp, teeth and top lip drawn back. A muttered: " Come on then, come ON!" And he wasn't sure if she was addressing the baby, himself, or just Fate.

"Re -" he began again. Like a prayer, or a mantra. Perhaps even a curse.

"- lax." She completed. Then: "No! Please God, just drive."

Feeling powerless, he risked a glance behind himself.

"Sherlock!"

The consulting detective looked up from tapping furiously at his phone. This had become come as much a reflex action as breathing, John Watson thought. Obsessive. Like a drug. And if he had had time or concentration to think about that, he would have felt a shaft of fear, of instinct, a lurch in his heart.

"That's it, Mary. Re -" Sherlock Holmes began.

"Don't you start!" Now kneeling on the car seat, in great distress, clutching at Sherlock - his arm, his shoulder; his head; she scrunched his head forcefully against the side window as a reactive spasm of pain, deeper and harder now, overcame her.

"-lax!" He snorted, face squashed uncomfortably against the rear window as she spasmed again in pain. His sound of surprise and a different sort of pain as she shoved his face harder against the glass was more a yelp. It should have been funny.

But it wasn't. Not funny at all. Yet to Mary Watson neither of the men seemed to be taking this seriously enough.

"John. John, I think you have to pull over," she cried finally..

"Mary? Mary!"

"Pull over!"

He finally realised he had no choice when he heard Sherlock Holmes' voice behind him. Peripheral vision showed his friend, head tilted, looking down; a vision of total horror.

This may have been new territory for all of them, but the great Sherlock Holmes was terrified. And it was his voice that did it.

"Oh my God!"

That made the decision for John Watson, So he wrenched the car to the left, into the gateway of a park. In the dark night, with rain streaming down, all he could see outside the car was a wall, wrought iron gates, overflowing litter bins, grey tarmac. The handbrake cable protested as he hauled the car to a halt and was out and round the side.

His wife was slumped down suddenly, cradled in the arms of Sherlock Holmes, drenched in sweat, face contorted in pain. Skirt rucked up her thighs, beyond modesty, beyond caring about that or anything else.

Holding tight onto his arms as he supported her by one hip and shoulder, to stop her sliding down into the footwell.

"My God, Mary…" the doctor managed, hands reaching forward automatically to help. "The head is presenting."

"Think I know that….." she gasped back at him.

"This is way too fast…" He was reaching into his pocket for his telephone. "Calling an ambulance…."

He proceeded to do so. Feeling strange to be a doctor calling 999 for his own emergency.

Spoke rapidly, then tossed the phone down as his wife's voice screamed at him:

"No time! Can't - aaaargh - wait!"

As she did so he lifted his head, saw the blue lights (no two tone, he registered vaguely, no eight-out-of-ten-emergency then) of an approaching ambulance reflected in the display window of a shop opposite.

"Ambulance!" he shouted. "Quick!"

"You think I can go and flag it down from here? Really?"

Detached from his own panic now, oddly amused, Sherlock Holmes remained holding Mary Morstan in place with both hands, her head tucked into his shoulder, most of her body in his lap. He was grinning with a sort of odd reassurance, and the light reflected from his wild eyes.

John Watson shouted an obscenity, pushed rapidly back out of the car and turned towards the street to attract the attention of the passing ambulance driver.

As he did so, two steps from the car, one step into the road and frantically waving his arms, his wife screamed in pain, gave a huge convulsion that arched her up and away from Sherlock Holmes.

"Let go of me! Bugger it, let GO!"

And, almost without any fuss or warning, or prior pushing something shiny and slippery and covered in blood arrived in Sherlock Holmes' large and open hands as he instinctively reached forward and down and fielded…...

It was hot and wet and heavier than he had expected, and the smell and heat overwhelmed him.

He looked at the crumpled ugly little face, red and blotchy with eyes still closed, and impassively watched the miracle of the child take it's first breath with nothing but fierce concentration.

"It's a girl," he told the mother in a hoarse whisper. "All extremities attached and normal. And it is breathing."

"Hah…" Pain and exultation both in the voice. A tone only heard from a woman at this particular time, he thought. Categorising. Uninterested in the facts of childbirth but filing away for the distant possibility of ever again hearing any recurrence of that particular sound in that particular register.

"Mind the umbilical cord. Don't let it twist. Call John." instructed the nurse and mother.

"Yes," he agreed. Lifted his head. "John!" he shouted. "Here!"

But he could see the blue light turning, the ambulance stationary now, across the street. The silhouette of John Watson against passing car lights, gesticulating and explaining. He dropped his head. The baby was starting to grizzle.

"Hello, Baby Watson. Welcome to your brave new world. Make the most of it. It'll turn to shit soon enough."

"Sherlock!" gasped the new mother. Through horrified laughter.

Their eyes met, blue to grey, across her body, across the baby. Mary Morstan was crying. And for that moment, that one tiny moment, head down to the baby so he could not be seen, Sherlock Holmes cried too.

In shock, in awareness, feeling the weight of this new responsibility. Regret for what might have been without this extra complication in all their lives.

 _Whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there for you. Always. For all three of you._

 _Right. OK. Yes. I did say that. Not realising then all that would involve and demand._

 _Never say what you don't mean….._

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's notes:**

Laver bread: Welsh delicacy made from boiled seaweed. And delicious.

Bullit: An iconic crime thriller book to film famous for a car chase around the streets of San Francisco. Originally titled Mute Witness the central character was originally called Frank Clancy (not Bullit) and written by well known author Robert L Fish writing here as Robert L Pike - he also used a pseudonym of AC Lamphrey. Fishy indeed!

The Mona Lisa: Many mysteries surround this famous painting, from it's history and ownership timeline to which of many versions is the real and/or original commissioned work; there is even another painting beneath the painting accepted as the real version and held in the Louvre, Paris. Which does not fit the description of the original listing of the work…or whether she is, or is not, smiling. Whoever she really is, and which is really her - which is also up for debate.

Armagnac Delord Hors D'Age is a 25 year plus caramel coloured brandy with a complex flavour and made by the Delord family at Lannepax in the Bas-Armagnac region of France. For the practical conoisseur.

Sinister- dexter: left and right in Latin.

Margaret Thatcher remains the only British Prime Minister with a chemistry degree. Her speciality was X-ray crystallography. Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire and an Oxford graduate, she attended Grantham and Kesteven High School For Girls.

Fentiman: Known in the UK as an upmarket brand of carbonated drinks, the name may be used as tribute to the Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey novel _The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club,_ which features two brothers named Fentiman involving the death of their uncle at his club.

Parkinson: Cecil, later Baron, Parkinson (1931 - 2016) was a prominent member of Thatcher's government and held several ministerial offices But remains more famous for an affair with a staff member and fathering her illegitimate child. Parkinson's Law was formulated by C Northcote Parkinson, a naval historian, which determined that 'work expands so to fill the time available for it's completion;' which suits Sherlock's current situation perfectly.

Hatherley: Victor Hatherley is a character in the original Sherlock Holmes short story _The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb._


	3. Chapter 3

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 3

 _If you 're lost and you look then you will find me - time after time, If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting. Time after time."_

 _(Cyndi Lauper)_

 _I am the actor who walked onstage into the wrong play. The foundling abandoned on the wrong doorstep. The wise fool in the wrong fable. The consulting detective solving the wrong crime. Failing at solving the right crime. Failing. Just…..failing._

In the warmth and wonder of John and Mary Watson's garden flat, he is the odd one out. He knows that. Only too well. So he stands erect and silent at the back of the room, unnoticed by those closest to him as John and Mary Watson sit on their sofa as if posing for a Victorian photographer, proudly cradling their baby daughter. The centre of attention.

Martha Hudson and Molly Hooper are cooing and preening like dimwit pigeons around the (still somewhat stunned) parents and their apparently adorable child.

Shiny helium balloons in garish colours float around the room. There are gift bags and glasses of champagne and a fluffy white teddy bear. Giggles and laughter, soft smiles and softer words.

He stands behind them all, watches and waits in the wings. He feels cold and empty and alien, a dislocation that is not unfamiliar but is suffocating and stultifying now, before all the people he knows best.

It has been like this since the baby was born. It is transformation of them all, what they are to each other. It is a growth he does not understand, a maturity he does not want and a joy he refuses to share. He has to force himself inside his isolation, and for too many reasons.

He smiles back too brightly as Mary Watson catches his eye, then lifts the phone in his hand, the tool that is dividing wall and armour and information. Removes himself from the inane conversation in the room.

"Has that come out?" Mrs Hudson peers at the screen of her new high tech camera, worrying about her photographs of the new baby and it's proud parents. "They never come out when I take them," she apologises.

 _Should never have bought something so high tech, but what do you get for the birthday of a lady of her age who is too pragmatic for the normal trite treats of life?_

"Let's have a look," Molly Hooper reassures, to the rescue, as is her way, checking the camera and it's controls. The photographs. She adjusts things and hands the camera back to it's new owner.

"Oh, she's so beautiful," Mrs Hudson purrs as the baby yawns and stretches, distracted.

"Have another go," Molly urges.

"What about a name?"

"Catherine," John Watson says confidently.

"Yeah - we've gone off that," his wife interjects quickly, clear eyed and smiling. This is the first John Watson has heard of the change of plan, the others can all tell. So they wait, holding breath.

"Have we?" John Watson looks across, and husband and wife exchange glances. He is loving and indulgent: anything she says. No argument.

"Yeah," she replies with a little nod..

"Oh…"

Before thought or disagreement or tension rises between them, their best man speaks; voice teasing, messaging on his phone but risking just a little lift of the eyes as both parents look at him across the room. "Well, you know what I think….."

"It's not a girls name!" they say in concert; agreed on this at least. But he does not reply. Only smiles a little. And when John Watson realises that his best friend is not going to contribute anything helpful, changes focus.

"Molly," he says. "Mrs H. We would love you to be godparents."

They should not be surprised, but they are. Also charmed and flattered and eager.

"Oh!" Mrs Hudson gave a delighted laugh

"If you…." he tries to continue the little speech he had prepared, but does not get that far.

"Really?" Molly Hooper is delighted, flushed pink and pretty with it.

"Oh, lovely!" Mrs Hudson beams.

Molly sits down on the sofa with Mary as John rises to go to Sherlock, who is texting now:

 **Fresh paint to disguise another smell**

John Watson looks up into Sherlock Holmes' face with hands spread in a questioning - 'look, you know what I'm going to ask' - expression. But is ignored.

"You too, Sherlock," he says.

"You too, what?" Concentration elsewhere, vaguely puzzled

"Godfather. We'd like you to be godfather."

There is a slight edge to his voice, steel in his gaze. Not the first time of asking. Daring him to refuse before such compliant and faithful witnesses.

 **Odd socks? Arrest the brother in law.**

He texts again before replying. Following a line of thought, deducing. Playing for time.

"Why don't you ask Lestrade? Mike Stamford? Sholto? Upright, reliable godfather material. Who would be charmed to comply."

"We want you."

"God is a ludicrous fiction dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all responsibility to an invisible magic friend," he pontificates quietly. Returns concentration to the phone as if this discussion is over and has no importance anyway.

Another text: **If dog can't swim, neighbour is the killer**.

John reads another incomprehensible solution to another case he is ignorant about, and looks away in frustration. Takes a moment to control his anger, then steps closer, tries levity.

"Yeah, but there'll be cake. Will you do it?"

A sharp and piercing glance. "I'll get back to you."

 _Was that working? The dislocation, the removal, the refusal to be ordinary? To give normal responses? Did they really still expect the Sherlock Holmes they had always known to just conform to a norm? Such a sentimental bonding sort of norm? Someone arrogant, dismissive of human need and warmth and affection? To do anything other than step away and not encompass their love and the goodwill?_

No. For now there was too much separating him from John and Mary and their baby. From Molly and Martha. From Lestrade, even. For now he was firmly in the camp, the mood, the mindset of Mycroft Holmes and Lady Smallwood. And Nico Sologashvili.

Other factors, factors he could not speak to any of them about, were directing him now.

o0o0o

"Follow us. Come to the hospital. Please?"

John Watson had clutched at his arm as his wife and baby were loaded into the ambulance. A plea that could be heard through the darkness and the rain, seen through the revealing headlights of passing vehicles.

"Stop panicking. You are a doctor. You have nothing to fear, there is nothing you don't know about all this."

His voice was meant to reassure, but even he could hear the impatience and withdrawal in his reply.

"Yeah. True. But this is different. Personal You know?" John Watson looked abashed, amused, but mainly worried. And apologetic for that. "No, of course you don't. Why did I say that?"

"I should move your car for you. Take it back to your home.. Can't leave it here, after all. Will fetch whatever else you'll need at the hospital."

He was rambling, he could hear himself. Verbose, Idiotic.

"Thank you. I know you'll work out what we'll need…..I can't think right now." The ambulance crew were making hurry-up motions to him, and he boarded the ambulance to join his wife and child, safe on a trolley. "Ta, mate. Gotta go now. See you!"

The ambulance doors shut with a solid whump, and the vehicle eased away and back into traffic, leaving Sherlock Holmes alone on the roadside, feeling hollow and oddly bereft before turning back to the car in which a baby had just been born.

He found a parking space directly outside the garden flat, and before locking the car scooped up the bloodied mess of blankets that had lined the back seat and also fished the two disgarded mobile phones from the rear footwell.

He let himself into the flat with John Watson's keys from the Lexus keyring, and closed the front door behind him by leaning against it, arms full.

Crossing into the kitchen he dropped the blankets into the washing machine and stood back to assess. A sweet distinctive smell of body fluids on the kitchen floor from the moment Mary's waters broke, signs of the abandoned meal and hurried departure.

For a frozen moment he surveyed the scene before him.

 _Decisions, decisions. Pick up a bag and the telephone charger, water, snacks, clean shirt, the open novel from John Watson's bedside table and just go. Or do the other thing. And then do the other other thing._

 _No choice really. About any of it. Such is my nature._

So he bent and opened the immaculately tidy cupboard under the sink, looked for what he needed and took laundry liquid and disinfectant to load the dispenser and switch the machine on. Lights flashed, machinery hummed.

Back in the cupboard he took out floor cleaner, hovered a hand over the crumpled soda crystals box….. decided against it, sloshed more disinfectant into a bucket, found the mop in the utility cupboard by the back door and washed the floor.

The shining surface and feminine smell of honeysuckle resulting was preferable to what had been there before.

He put bucket and mop away, turned to the oven and worktops. Transferred chicken casserole to a plastic box and stowed that in the tidy fridge. Changed the water in the pan of potatoes and returned untrimmed vegetables from the worktop back into the crisper.

Wiped and tidied and put things away. Ordinary everyday domesticity. The calming effects of mindless routine. Mrs Hudson could be proud of him, he thought.

Then he washed and dried the dishes, leaving the crusted casserole crock to soak and return to. If anyone came to the flat and he needed an alibi for still being there. Still washing up…..

But the home remained silent, and no-one came into it. No telephone call, not even to the landline: no emergency calls from a hospital payphone, no update to his mobile. For he had both John and Mary Watson's mobile phones on the table in front of him, rescued from inside the car.

He held them both in his hands for a moment. Scrolled down their screens and call logs and contact lists in case he had missed anything. Replaced them carefully where he first put them.

Packed Mary's favourite tote bag with the varied items he had gathered together to take to the hospital, and dropped it by the front door.

And then he turned back. As had always been inevitable.

 _The other other thing._

Within moments there was little he did not know about the humdrum daily life of Dr and Mrs Watson as he raided desk and cupboards and drawers with cold deliberation. The state of their bank balances, utility bills, insurance policies and pensions, TV licence, club memberships for the gym and the RAC. Names and birthdays from their address book, recent post, dental appointment cards and the file containing the baby scans.

All boringly ordinary until his search found the home safe tucked away in the bottom of their bedroom wardrobe. A home safe similar to the one at Baker Street.

He paused then. Lifted the safe onto the bed, and took the little roll of jeweller's tools from the poacher's pocket in the Belstaff and set to work, head down, listening to the machinery yielding to him. A task of seconds to pick the lock, those vital skills Angelo Grimaldi had taught him years before.

He opened the lid. As expected, John Watson's Sig Sauer pistol looked up at him, old and familiar, clean and wrapped in chamois leather, alongside a box of bullets. He could not help but smile as he lifted it from the box; pleased the weapon was still part of John Watson's armoury, despite all. Hope and reassurance, seeing that.

Military medals in their leatherette boxes with their citations. Papers beneath that. Birth certificates (Mary Elizabeth Morstan, born in Chiswick, London, October 21st 1972, father Stanley Roy, electrical contractor, mother Elizabeth Ruth, domestic science teacher. _A work of fiction starring strangers; what else had he expected to see? The death certificate? Tear tracks of bereaved parents?_ John's old school reports, his Army paperwork.

And buried at the very bottom of the box, a long thin brown envelope. He opened it without compunction.

An insurance policy against her life. Beneficiaries John Watson and 'my child and any ensuing children' An expensive policy bought to provide a larger than normal amount of money, and dated three days before the wedding.

Had John ever seen it? Even knew about it? He doubted it. Or surely there would have been a reciprocal policy, to cross protect and provide for each other? That would work. That was how it normally worked.

But John - being John - would trust, and never ask. Never think about such a policy, or look into any of his wife's secrets. Never dream of opening an envelope addressed to her alone. Ignorance was his default position here. Ignorance might - questionably - be bliss, but it could also prove fatal.

He sank down then, suddenly exhausted. Sat back on his heels on the bedside rug and stilled. Just looking at the stark formal words, their date and signature.

 _So she had know. Even before he had deduced the pregnancy at the wedding reception. She had known. Three days before the wedding. She had known._

 _Why had she not admitted it before then? Told John. Been honest and open and deepened his love and commitment to her? Unless she thought a baby would strain that love? Make him back away and out? Remove his protection at her back?_

 _Did she not know her man? Not at all? Where it counted?_

 _So why did she not dare simply trust? Perhaps because of all that had happened to her? Or what she feared might happen to her yet - to her and the baby - even with John by her side? How much greater was the fear - and the risk - if she had been still alone?_

 _Had she felt the need to change identity yet again, for Mary Morstan to disappear deeper into the mundane by becoming the very ordinary Mrs Mary Watson, wife and mother?_

 _Except that John Watson was no man to choose to be an ordinary husband and father. But perhaps she discovered that too late. When she was already committed? In love, even?_

 _Had she been so desperate to deny her real nature and hide her true self in the guise of motherhood? Or had she really wanted this baby as desperately as some women were supposed to?_

 _Had she believed doctor and soldier John Watson was the only person she could find who could and would accept the duality of her nature as feminine biology warred with her logical and ruthless brain?_

 _Or did she think, when she found him - when she chose him - to involve herself with the unassuming and very ordinary seeming doctor who was anything but, that he was the only person who could and would protect her and stand at her side? Offer succour and support and protection if she was ever recognised, or discovered? Be her bulwark and protector? Just as he was bulwark and protector to Sherlock Holmes?_

 _That John Watson would be there for her at the point in the future - inescapable, probably inevitable - when the humdrum life she had created for herself went to hell? When her disguise was ripped away?_

 _Was the creation of the child the accident she had claimed it to be? Or a deliberate entrapment to ensnare the loyal and loving John Watson and keep him by her side? Even with the added sudden complication of the undead friend? The spectre at the feast, the fly in the ointment, the iron hand twisting the ill-fitting velvet glove she had chosen to wear?_

 _So was this even more calculated than it had seemed? A manipulation that was hard logic over human weakness? Or human weakness, winning out over logic?_

 _How could he tell? Be sure? Because there was a difference. Which made all the difference._

He slumped, hating himself and his deductions, his logic and compulsion for truth and justice, holding the insurance policy limply now between his hands. As, brain working, assessing the new information, he idly thumbed the paperwork and booklet that came with it.

Hidden within those pages something more shifted and revealed itself. Another envelope of thick high quality paper. He opened it and found a will inside.

The will of Mrs Mary Elizabeth Watson (nee Morstan)

 _Something else she was hiding from her husband in plain sight, then. Oh, Mary. Why did you not trust John? Not trust me? Because one of us was always going to find this thing, eventually._

With a grim feeling of inevitability he unfolded the official document and read. Stilled in profound shock. A shock that should not have surprised him, should have always made sense, should have not caught him so unawares. If he was less of a freak and more of a human human being. But only John Watson called him that, or recognised that shameful secret buried so deep within him.

Beyond the jargon and the legal terminology, Mary Elizabeth Watson (nee Morstan) made legal declaration that she left everything she owned to her husband, Doctor (Captain, Retired) John Hamish Watson, and to their child and any as yet unborn children resulting from that union.

There were details of an offshore account in the Cayman Islands he was sure John Watson had no idea even existed: which indicated Mary Watson was far better off than she appeared. _(And where did that money come from? How was it earned? And from whom? Dirty money? Laundered money?)_

A short and simple final paragraph as a codicil. A codicil dated just a week earlier:

" _In the event of the demise of both Doctor JH and Mrs ME Watson and the survival of any child or children of their union, then their dear and trusted friend William Sherlock Scott Holmes of 221B, Baker Street, London, is nominated legal guardian of said child or children until such child or children reach the age of majority. A trust fund having been created for the care and education of said child or children as detailed above. "_

He put one hand to his mouth to hold back the gasp of surprise, even though there was no-one else in the flat to hear his reaction.

 _I do not want this. I do not want this responsibility. This trust. That burden._

 _And I even said it to her. I said; your gift is my burden' and she said that was the idea and then she kissed me. Oh God. God help me. What do I do now?_

 _But what had compelled her to write a will? At that particular moment in time? What did she know?_

He waited and calmed and then did what he would always have done. With the same cool intent. Photographed all the documents onto his phone. Put everything back as he had found it. Went back to the telephones, took them apart with his specialist tools and made adjustments. Then put them in the bag by the door.

Finally returned to the cupboard under the sink, drawn there by instinct and thoroughness, attracted by the untidy and much handled blue cardboard box in that very tidy kitchen. Inside the box, inside a used grey plastic postal bag among the ice clear crystals, was a gun.

Correction. _The gun._

The gun she had used to shoot him in Magnussen's office. So long ago it felt like a lifetime ago; or perhaps just ten minutes ago….and one hand went involuntarily to the puckered scar in the centre of his chest. As he shuddered in a breath,

A Walther PPK then. With it's silencer. He had never had clear enough sight or concentration to identify it when she had lifted it, pointed it at him and fired. So he knew the gun. Did not need to take either item from their bag. He had expected to find them after all. But perhaps not so close at hand.

 _Did she never fear that her husband would find it? Or had assumed that if he did he would calmly accept it as just another facet of life with her, sharing that killer's mentality, and with his own pistol also close to hand, after all?_

 _Or was it vital to her to have it within easy reach? In case danger - another assassin - came to the door when she was preparing food or washing dishes? So she could just reach in and down and eliminate the problem?_

 _She would have to be careful when the baby grew to be an inquisitive toddler. Would have to put baby locks on all the cupboards….._

 _Oh! This is getting far too whimsical. Get a grip._

He stopped thinking. Took the bag and his knowledge and left the flat, locking the door carefully behind him.

o0o0o

He slid the bag quietly before him through another door and into the little side ward.

Mary Watson lay deeply asleep on her high bed, covers smoothed demurely to just below her throat. Her husband dozed in a chair by her side, head propped on a fist propped on a chair arm. He looked dishevelled but finally peaceful. And Sherlock Holmes did not want to alter that state. For it would end soon enough.

The child, he assumed, was in some nursery or other, being…weighed, or tested, or soothed. Whatever they did with new-born babies. The relief of that absence, both physical presence and knowledge, was enormous. He had no intention of ever being aware and knowledgeable around babies. Any babies.

Even more quietly he stooped to put the bag by John Watson's chair and softly reversed his direction. Was almost out of the room - no harm done, swift and silent as a ghost - when the door hinges betrayed him and creaked.

John Watson's eyes snapped open, and he was impaled, frozen, in their glare, by the way they looked at him.

"You took your time. Where've you been?"

But before he could reply his friend put a finger to his lips for silence, rose from the chair and they crept out of the room together, neither wanting to disturb the new mother as she slept.

In the corridor they paused, within sight and succour should she awaken.

"Where have you been?"

"Took your car home. Gathered up some things. Taxi here. All takes time."

"What else have you been up to? You look….strained."

"It's been that sort of night. Quite a day all round. Solving a murder, attending a birth…"

"Sherlock."

"I stayed to….clear up. Wash the floor where Mary had…where Mary had…" he gave up trying to find appropriate words, shrugged. "Washed the dishes. Put things away."

"You did?"

"Yes. Sorry. Was that…was it the wrong thing to do?"

"Of course not. That was kind, Sherlock. Thoughtful. You should know that? God, you are such an idiot sometimes…."

John Watson huffed a soft laugh into the air and did his best to curl his friend into a soft hug of thanks, but was tipped off balance at the speed Sherlock Holmes snapped backwards and spun away to the far side of the corridor.

"Don't. Do that. You know not to. I don't. Deserve…."

"You deserve all the love you get, you nutter. Delivering our baby. The first person to see her and speak to her. The perfect godfather-to-be. Then even clearing up the mess we left behind us."

"I washed the blankets from the back of the car, too. Was that OK?"

John Watson stilled and regarded his friend. Took in the flushed face, the sheen of sweat, the exhausted eyes, the general air of something that in anyone else he would call stress or desperation.

"What's happened?" he demanded, suddenly concerned. "What have you done?"

"Nothing! I….." he pivoted a tight circle on his heels, very erect. There was no way he could ever explain what he had found out this night. How much things had changed. How much he needed to do now, and how urgently. To find what had happened in Tblisi six years ago, and how that was fast returning into focus, pointing at Mary Morstan. At Agra.

How the words _dear and trusted friend_ was burning a hole in his heart and his brain.

"I'm not used to babies," he ended lamely.

John Watson put his head back then and laughed.

"And so say all of us!" he finally managed to reply. "It's new to Mary and me too. We may be a doctor and a nurse, but we are old to be handling our own first baby. And to tell you the truth of it - the whole things scares me to death." He put a hand on his friend's arm and leaned in conspiratorially, grinned a little. "But don't tell Mary!"

Silver eyes flickered a look, and one corner of that expressive mouth lifted in what could be a smile.

"I have been so worried about this age thing," he confided in a rush. "Whether Mary and the baby would both survive. What I would do then. If they died."

"You would be fine. Your life would be much simpler."

Anyone else facing such a tactless reply would have reacted badly: but this was John Watson facing Sherlock Holmes. So he knew the harsh words were nothing but truth that dared to be spoken by only one person. He merely nodded in response. Recognition of that logic. And somehow that made him feel more grounded about the events of such an emotional day.

So he smiled. Let the joy of new life reclaim him.

"That may be true. But just now I wouldn't have it any other way." He reached out a hand. "Come and see them tomorrow when they are awake. Mary and the baby. Come and visit?"

"No."

One word, like a douche of cold water that ruined the closeness of the moment between them. Sherlock Holmes' face had frozen and he had withdrawn without moving a muscle.

"Why not? Mary will be so disappointed. She wants to see you. Thank you for…."

"I have to go abroad. A case."

Yes, he was right. Sherlock Holmes had stepped back and away from him again. Just when he had thought the old easy closeness was back. He sighed, more desperately disappointed than he had thought possible. Tried to understand and to say the right thing.

"That must be important, to have appeared out of thin air so quickly. And to be taking you abroad to solve it. Want to tell me about it?"

"No. No! I…" a hand flapped reactively. "I haven't been briefed yet. I need…to go for that briefing. Now."

"Are you OK?"

"Of course."

"Don't give me that. I know you too well. What's happened? What's upset you this evening? Between the baby and now?"

"I had hoped…for breathing space….before my masters needed me again." As an excuse it sounded weak, but John Watson knew what had happened and understood. All that had happened since Christmas Day. "I am not….quite right. Not yet."

He turned to John Watson and for a second there was something naked in his face. "You know that."

John Watson tried to damp down his reaction, a little shaft of fear. Such an admission may have been true, but it was not in Sherlock Holmes' character to reveal so much; not of anything. Least of all himself, of weakness. So now his reply came quiet and soft.

"I know that. But tell me, so I can help."

"You can't help." The head of the younger and taller man lifted high to put his eyes out of John Watson's sight; something more than the usual withdrawal. "And I could not ask you. I really couldn't."

"A month ago I shot a man who was trying to kill you."

"That was then. This is now."

The dull delivery of the words sounded like a funeral knell. And spurred John Watson to finally say:

"Ever since you came back. Ever since then…. you have pushed me away. You're doing it now."

"Yes. I know. I am sorry."

"But it's not going to make any difference, is it? "

"No. You have Mary. She and the baby are your life now. A life you chose. I should stand merely on your periphery. Despite the warmth and constancy of your friendship. Anyone else would have abandoned me long ago."

"I'm not like that. It doesn't have to be like that."

"Yes. It does. Because that is how it should be. And you know - you have always known - that the work is my life. All I want."

"But not all you need, Sherlock. You need love and support and family, just like anyone else. And we are your family."

"Shut up. Leave it, John. Work comes first and last for me."

"Is this new urgent case so important, then?"

"You have no idea. Give Mary my love. That is what I am supposed to say, isn't it? Give her my love. And I will see you both when I get back. But I really must go."

A lean hand lifted and hovered, did not know where to land, so found a home in a pocket of the Belstaff. John Watson nodded briefly. Acceptance and dismissal. No more words.

But he stood and watched the man in the dark overcoat walk away down the hospital corridor. Long stride, erect posture, dark curls, immense presence. Resisted the impulse to call him back and throw his arms about him, keep him safe.

o0o0o

Back in the darkness of the elegant townhouse library there were fresh snifters of brandy.

"I need to go to Tblisi immediately. Examine the scene, find what was missed. Speak to your contact. Arrange it. Now, please."

"Why the hurry suddenly?"

There was a pause and Mycroft Holmes could almost physically feel his brother sorting and selecting words.

"New facts have come to my attention. I need to resolve this situation."

"What facts? And why now? Tell me."

"Really nothing to do with you."

"It really is."

"No. Not yet. Not until I know more. Put it all together. Trust me."

"I hate it when you say that. Never results in a healthy course of events, in my experience."

"Shut up Mycroft. I'm in no mood for games."

"When are you ever?" He paused, tried a different tack. "Has something happened?"

"The Watson baby was born this evening. Mother and healthy girl child are doing well and currently in hospital recovering. Or whatever it is mothers and babies do."

"I see. And this long awaited event has precipitated…what?"

The ensuing silence was a heavy one. The older brother waited, if not patiently. And the answer was not what he might have expected.

"They….John and Mary….want me to be their baby's godfather."

"Congratulations." The tone of voice was dry, disparaging. "How wonderfully mundane for you."

"I agree."

"That saddles you with more obligations."

No reply. But none was needed.

"So you need to discover what happened in Tblisi? To Agra? Whether these new whispers will crash the past into the present?. New threats to Morstan, and by connection, to her husband and child?"

"Something like that."

"Hmn." He watched his brother as they sat and sipped brandy together. Held onto the moment. There was something bothering Sherlock, something more than he was admitting to. Something that was increasing the threat of danger then? Or extra knowledge of the situation?

"Too many people died in that siege for us to get a complete narrative., of first hand report Too many bodies were burned and either rendered unidentifiable - we never had a complete list of everyone there, and you can only identify by DNA when you know who you are looking for - or were simply vapourised in the intense heat of the explosions.

"The assumption was the entire Agra team was eliminated. Nothing has been heard from any of them in the six years since. Until Morstan surfaced and was identified. Either she is not telling what happened, or genuinely does not know.

"For what it's worth, my belief is they became separated in the chaos and she just survived it all by chance, and simply does not know. She had a reputation for loyalty and thoroughness, so if there was anything she could have done, she would have."

Still silence from the chair opposite.

"The official report on Tblisi, despite it's lack of precision, has a fifty year embargo upon it. It remains very sensitive. An utter cock-up in all areas, basically."

"Why? How?""

Mycroft Holmes made an involuntary movement.

"We could claim extenuating circumstances - an unexpected attack on a difficult target that took three months to break. With the need for total secrecy at a difficult time for international relations, so great pressure. Failed attempts to break the siege by our own forces, against a dangerous and suicidal splinter group of Russian backed insurgents. Calling in freelancers was a final, last chance indignity. And would spare our own losses if another attempt failed.

"So. When in doubt suspect sabotage. Or treason. I beg your pardon if that sounds utterly melodramatic." He raised a hand to kill comment or more questions. " I shall arrange your trip.

"The tea time flight to Tblisi from Gatwick tomorrow. Will that do? Tblisi is four hours ahead of London and the flight will take almost five hours.. You will be met at the airport. Then you will be taken to Siri. He will help as he can."

"Siri means Speech Interpretation And Recognition Interface. The sound of artificial intelligence. A good name for an agent, don't you think? But Siri is not a man's name. It is a girl's name. But if it truly is short for the code name Sirius, that is the dog star, the brightest star in the sky. Mixed messages, Mycroft."

"Being the brightest star in the sky suits him well." Mycroft Holmes smiled. "You'll see soon enough."

"You like him."

"I judge him to be a singular person."

"You worked together? In Tblisi?"

"Indeed."

"Why were you there?"

"The end of the Cold War released Russia's iron grip on her satellites. As a major east west crossroads, Georgia was always a prime target to re-establish contacts and representation. There was a scramble to get in, especially after the Rose Revolution when Georgia claimed independence.

"Great Britain has always had a special relationship with Georgia. So we were especially keen to return. I already knew a great deal about Georgia.

"Oxford University has particular links with Georgia. Mainly through a pioneering diplomat called John Oliver Wardrop and his sister Marjory, who together brought Georgian culture to the west at the start of the twentieth century. They were trailblazing multilingual adventurers.

"Wardrop was Britain's first Chief Commissioner of the Trancauscas in Tblisi in 1919. He and his sister championed Georgian culture, translated Georgian literature. They loved the country and the country loved them. He founded and financed the centre for Kartvellan Studies in Oxford after her death. So I was more than aware of their work and of Georgia, even as a student.

"Anyway, to quickly re-establish our embassy in Tblisi, part of an hotel was leased as a temporary stop-gap. Not ideal, as the siege proved.

"But as a result we now have a futuristic fortress embassy that is an example to others. There will never be a repeat performance."

"Remarkable it happened and stayed secret."

"The Georgians cooperated. And no-one believes anything Russia says these days under Putin. So we could block the possibility of any news story surfacing. And there were other factors…" Mycroft Holmes buried in face in his brandy glass and paused.

"Siri will help you. But unofficially. You understand? I have called in a favour, Sherlock. His position as what may be called a double agent must remain solid. And consider he also has his own agenda."

"What does that mean?"

The question, sharply spoken, was ignored, and Mycroft ploughed on with his briefing.

"He was there on the ground at the time of the siege. He is Georgian, but Oxford educated. His family are Georgian princelings, from way back, with lands around Tblisi. In fact his family heritage is so singular that part of his family went to Russia and appointed themselves princelings there too. He is something of a singular personality. You will see. He will contact you."

Mycroft Holmes drained his glass and stood up.

"Just be on that flight. And let's see what you can find."

o0o0o

Afterwards, he always blamed himself for what happened. How he should have reacted better - not recoiled. Reached out faster and grabbed and held on, and how that would have stopped….everything that happened afterwards happening.

But then, as Mycroft had reassured and repeated, he could not have expected what had happened. Could not have anticipated or guarded against it. And would only have been delaying Fate, after all. Bad luck and Fate and happenstance.

It began so very simply. A brief telephone call the next morning.

"Sherlock Holmes?" asked the voice. "This is Nico Sologashvili. Siri, if you prefer. In view of the potential sensitivity of your visit we will give you a code name." A light tenor, confident, businesslike, received pronunciation and careful enunciation. "For that purpose, we shall call you Mr Potter."

"Harry Potter?" Sherlock did not bother to keep the scornful tone from his voice.

"Of course not. We are foreigners, not children. Mr Selwyn Potter."

Sherlock Holmes took a beat, smiled to himself, and relaxed hls shoulders

"Far more appropriate. "

"Indeed so. You will be met at the airport and brought to me."

"How will I recognise you?"

"I will recognise you."

The conversation had sounded like a conversation with Mycroft.

But the person who met him in the atrium of the smart new Shota Rustaveli International Airport was a tall dark haired young woman in designer denims and cashmere sweater who introduced herself simply as Nia.

She had walked up to him as if she knew him, confident and relaxed, had dropped a kiss on his cheek and called him Selwyn as if he was an old friend, and led him to an elderly Mercedes to drive the seventeen kilometres into the city.

"Are we being watched?" he asked quietly.

"Who knows? We simply take precautions," she had replied, unlocking the car, ushering him inside and not speaking again until stopping at an anonymous concrete corner of brutalist Russian architecture in the modern part of the city.

"Walk up there into the flea market. Nico will find you," she instructed. And so he did so. Shrugging the strap of his leather travel bag onto his right shoulder.

Even so late in the day the market was still busy. Stalls set haphazardly either side of a foot path, string lights and people of all ages and types milling around, buying and chatting. Food and vegetables in from the country, second hand clothes, household goods and cheap toiletries; in England it would be generous to describe it as a car boot sale.

And so he walked. Slowly, looking round with care and general interest until noticing a tall elegant man approaching him. A handsome oval face, thick dark hair with a trace of silver at the temples, slicked back above strong brows and dark eyes. An expensive and slightly outdated chalk striped three piece suit.

His smile looked like the smile on the face of a tiger, and the smile was for him alone. Hands came out to greet him, and he stepped too close into Sherlock Holmes' personal space as they halted, facing each other. Sherlock Holmes resisted the temptation to step back a pace.

"Selwyn! Great to see you! A good trip?"

The voice was the same voice from on the telephone earlier: RP accent, totally assured. Instead of the expected handshake, Sologashvili's right hand - dark, tanned, perfectly manicured, wearing one gold ring too many - caught his left wrist and insinuated past the pale skeletal hand and up inside the shirt cuff. Fingers pressed gently into and across the skin and bone, while the strong left hand rose to cup and hold Sherlock's jaw as the other man peered deeply into his eyes like a lover.

"No one could impersonate you, Sherlock Holmes," the voice was now the softest seductive whisper by his ear. "Not with that freckle in your right eye and those scars on your wrists. Welcome to Tblisi. _Gamarjoba!"_

"I don't speak Georgian."

"Only Georgians speak Georgian. Don't worry - most of us speak English as a second language these days." He was taller than Sherlock, slim but broad in the shoulder, and older; Mycroft's age perhaps. Exerting charisma and personality and a total assurance of power.

"But where are my manners? After your trip you need sustenance. Tea? The café here is very good."

Sherlock found himself being led irresistibly towards a nearby peasant tea stall, several little metal tables before it, and Nico Sologashvili was guiding him towards an empty table on the very edge of the market.

Bowing to the inevitable, aware of being in a public place, he was twisting to slip the bag from his shoulder and turning to sit, when something - someone - cannoned into him at speed.

Breath knocked out of him with force. Taken by surprise, pushed hard and off balance, he was on his way to the ground. He saw Sologashvili opposite him begin to react, even though he was on the wrong side of the table and out of direct harm's reach.

Sherlock Holmes reacted instinctively, tried to grab for his assailant despite his weakened state and going down. For an instant he looked into dark burning eyes in a thin face. Too close to properly focus. All he could see was dark shining hair, a small wiry frame. Those dark burning eyes….

 _Moriarty! Moriarty? Is this really Moriarty? Here? In a cheap Georgian flea market?_

His impetus forward stopped dead in shock and what might have been fear, but he felt his hands brushing material, and was grasping instinctively again for purchase.

" _Randu venna epa!"_

The words snapped out of the other man, curse as much as command.

" _Do not fight!"_ Sinhalese, not Georgian. Sinhalese, not English. Pavlovian reaction as he folded in on himself, to words not heard for too many years, but still only heartbeats away in fear and shame.

He recoiled instantly despite himself, dropped his hands, wrenched backwards in panic. Just for a second. A telling, defeating, unforgivable second. And as he stuttered backwards, then recovered and reached forwards again, his courage and his logic finally winning through, he already knew he was too late.

A foot shod in a heavy boot flashed out fast and made contact with the side of his head. And the last thing he saw - the last thing - was those dark eyes tearing away from his as pain overtook him. That, and the sight of his bag being snatched and fading from his reach and sight.

Felt hands on him, then. His name spoken, then called urgently. Before all was blackness. Bitter blackness and beyond pain.

o0o0o

Scroll forward. Days and weeks and in another country.

The sky is bright blue without a single cloud on a beautiful spring day. The church, the same Cotswold church where John and Mary had been married, looked beautiful: the sandstone warm and glowing golden, the coloured light shining through the stained glass, the Watson family group happy and relaxed as they gathered round the Saxon font.

The baby lies quietly in her parents arms, while the parents themselves glow with pride and happiness.

Even the officiating clerk in holy orders is the expected stereotype: elderly, short and chubby, with a ready smile and kind eyes.

"Father, we ask you to send your blessings on this water and sanctify for our use this day, in Christ's name.. Amen," he says formally and turns to the parents expectantly.

"Now: what name have you given your daughter?"

"Rosamund Mary," announces the mother clearly.

"Rosamund?" Sherlock Holmes repeats softly despite himself, looks up briefly from his distracted texting and frowns. Straight into Mary Watson's eyes.

"Means rose of the world," Molly Hooper leans into him and explains the name softly into his ear. "Rosie for short, Is that a surprise? Didn't you get John's texts?

 _Yes, of course I did! But I thought it was a joke. Or irony. Warning. Precaution. Something like that…_

"No," he replies shortly. And before she could chastise him as he knew she would, continued blindly: " I delete his texts. I delete any text that begins 'Hi.'"

Molly Hooper looks at him as if he has just crawled out from under a stone.

"No idea why people think you are capable of human emotion," she remarks in a dismissive whisper, face closing down, turning away from him..

Mrs Hudson clears her throat, very pointedly making a noise without words to shut them both up so the Christening could continue.

Molly mutters an apology, concentrating on the ceremony before her again. But Sherlock Holmes is not looking at her, but at Mary Watson. And she looks back for one hard and pointed moment, looking away before her expression is noticed by anyone else.

 _Oh, you clever, clever woman. You know and I know the real meaning of the name Rosamund, and that it has nothing to do with that much later and sentimental definition 'rose of the world' that Molly and Mrs Hudson must love._

 _I know the word in it's original meaning, as you know I would. Rosamund is old High German. It means protection. Is that what you are demanding for your daughter, Mary? From me? Is this part of the compact you demand from me? Nothing to do with beauty or fragrance. But you are making your appeal to me, telling me. Telling ME she is protected._

 _And how that protection is my task. My role. Her destiny and mine? Your dear and trusted friend. Am I really that? Or is this another poy? Another example of your blatant emotional blackmail?_

 _Rosamund's only godfather. My responsibility by default, then?_

 _I should hate you, whoever you are. But I understand. How it is that even if you dared not tell me about the change of name for your baby, you dared to trust me with her?_

"Sorry." Molly Hooper looks down at Sherlock Holmes' hands, still busy working the telephone. "Stop, it, Sherlock. Have some respect for the christening, for John and Mary and the little one."

He mutters something that might have passed as apology, and puts the phone behind his back to then look up and see the vicar looking at him too, holding baby Rosamund Mary, who looks very pretty in her Christening robe and shawl, but is grizzling.

"And now," intones the vicar with infinite patience to deal with the vagaries of the world and errant godfathers.

"Godparents…..are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duties as Christian parents?"

Sherlock Holmes continues typing blind, hands behind his back, fingers flying over the keys. while appearing to pay attention to the proceedings before him..

"We are," Molly and Mrs Hudson say together.

Molly looks pointedly at Sherlock, and when he does not notice this, nudges him with her elbow again, pushing him sharply and causing his fingers to fumble the phone and almost drop it. Fingers blindly on keys.

From the phone a voice suddenly emerges from the scrambled numbers. Not loud, but clearly, and on speaker.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," it says. Male, beautifully enunciated. A voice no-one there but Sherlock Holmes knows. Nico Sologashvili.

John Watson looks at Sherlock Holmes and closes his eyes in a gesture of silent frustration. But his wife glares, eyes daggers. He doesn't notice - or if he does, does not react.

"Please repeat the question?" continues the voice. "That last text is gobbledegook and I need to speak to you. Sherlock…?"

And the consulting detective takes four paces backwards before turning away from the ceremony and walking swiftly down the aisle of the church without a backwards glance.

TO BE CONTINUED...

 **Author's Notes:**

RAC: Royal Automobile Club, the British car rescue organisation as well as a London based gentleman's club and the world's oldest organisation of it's type.

Poacher's pocket: A deep and invisible internal coat or jacket pocket set into the lining. Originally so a poacher could hide his illicit catch and carry it invisibly.

The lock picking skills taught to Sherlock by Angelo is detailed in the O'Donnell short story 'At Angelo's.'

Codicil: An additional or amendment to a will made at a later date than the original document and which may supercede details in the original..

Sir John Oliver Wardrop: Sir John Oliver Wardrop KBE CMG (I864-1948) was a diplomat, adventurer, traveller and translator. He founded the Georgian Society in the UK, catalogued Georgian manuscripts for the British Museum and donated a definitive collection of Georgian books to the Bodleian Library, which is the main research library of Oxford University and one of the oldest liubraries in Britain with more than 12 million items. After his younger sister died, Wardrop funded and created the Marjory Wardrop Fund at Oxford University.

Marjory Wardrop (1869-1909) his younger sister, was a pioneering linguist and historian. Fluent in Georgian, she translated many classic Georgian literary and mythical works, including the famous C12th epic poem _The Knight In the Panther's Skin_ by _Shota Rustavelli._ After whom Tblisi's new international airport is named

In 2015 a commemorative statue of the Wardrops was dedicated close to the Georgian Parliament in Tblisi's Oliver Wardrop Square.

British Embassy, Tblisi. The real British Embassy was indeed re-established in a hotel. The new embassy building on a prominent hilltop site replacing a hospital, opened not long after the fictional siege story would have occurred. It is one of the most impressive, modern and heavily fortified embassy buildings in the world. Several women have indeed served as British Ambassador there.

Sologashvili: A Georgian nobility dating back to the C15th Originally from the southern province of Samtskhe, moving to Karthli, where the king granted them the title of Tarvadi (prince) and lands in Algeti, Vere and Tblisi. The family owned fortresses and monasteries, with the Russian branch being known as Salagov.

Mr Potter was the name Major Selwyn Jephson used as his innocuous alias during WW2 when selecting secret service operatives for the Special Operations Executive which sent spies into the European resistance movement. A friend of Churchill, crime fiction author and former magazine editor, Jephson created and operated SOE as well as running the largest, the French, operations section. He remains one of the great unknown and unheralded backroom heroes of the war.

Rosie's Christening: The words from the script bear no relation to any religious wording or order of service, as a christening (as opposed to a naming ceremony) is a religious service and not a civil one, and as this takes place in an English parish church, the ceremony is a Church of England (Anglican) one.

Rosamund: Translates fully into old German as 'horse protection.' 'Rose of the world' comes later as a more populist meaning.


	4. Chapter 4

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 4

" _The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."_

 _(LP Hartley, The Go-Between.)_

Standing on the balcony of the ancient galleried house, looking over the beautiful old town that could have opened out from a colourful pop-up book of fairy tales, he had the rare whimsical feeling he should be a Great Panjandrum or some proud pasha. Or perhaps a Georgian princeling, a _tavardi._ Grinned to himself at the ironic absurdity of such a flight of fancy.

He is merely a consulting detective, he reminded himself. A rather battered, and not very capable, consulting detective. With bruises, aching muscles and a swollen face. No luggage but a lot of baggage.

Which is why he wears ludicrously expensive black silk pyjamas and a sweeping floor length dressing gown skimming over the top of black leather mules. The trouser cuffs have been turned back and over, like a child's pyjamas, because they have been borrowed from the taller Nico Sologashvili.

Along with toiletries, a razor, and a broad ancient wooden bed.

Yesterday had not gone well.

The attack had happened without warning, before he had even got his bearings in this strange, unknown and dangerously beautiful Silk Road city, while feeling oddly wrong footed and still assessing the uniquely confident and over aware contact his own brother had described as 'singular.'

 _Singular: adjective, meaning of unusual quality or standard; not ordinary, noticeable.' Hmn. Just so._

Taken unawares by the attack, he would normally have reacted at speed and taken down the attacker. But knocked breathless, falling and turning, that glance of wiry figure, dark burning eyes and narrow features had made him hesitate in surprise -

 _Moriarty! Really Moriarty? Here? Now! What if…._

And then the words torn from the attacker in surprise as he, Sherlock, had attempted to return the attack, resist and repel it: remembered words in a foreign language from his attacker that he had not heard for years. Years. Except in nightmare….

' _Randu vanna epa!"_

Who would expect to hear Sinhalese in Georgia? Even in a city said to contain 100 different cultures from both the west and the east. And those chilling, simple words that were his own special trigger for night terrors, sweats and violent memories - 'do not fight!'

He had frozen then, recoiled like a useless amateur. And how truly useless was that? And if he hadn't frozen, even for that split second, if he hadn't been so stupid, so pathetic….then the thief (Or was it the spider? The criminal? The tail? The spy? The assassin?) would have been caught, the problem solved, the luggage retained.

 _The two things he feared the most had come upon him together. And he had behaved like a child. A hopeless, helpless child again… when would he ever learn?_

"How are you this morning? Did you sleep?"

Elegant in a charcoal pin striped suit, the newcomer looked calm and supremely confident. But then he had the advantage; this was his home, in his own country, and no-one had attacked him.

Sherlock Holmes did not reply but turned to watch the older and taller man cross the bedroom towards him, open the balcony door and stand alongside in the crisp morning air.

"My city is beautiful, is she not?" he asked with total confidence.

Then gestured with the items in his arms and spoke again before Sherlock could answer him.

"A clean shirt of mine for you - perhaps just a little too large? You are too thin. No matter. New socks and underwear."

"Thank you." A nod that was not a smile.

"My pleasure. In Georgia guests are always welcomed, and considered a gift from God."

"I however, am merely a gift from Mycroft," the reply was dry with irony and followed with a half shrug. "Not much difference. More of a disappointment."

But Sologashvili refused to deflected.

"Yesterday could not have been predicted. If it could have been, we would have been prepared, and both of us done better. Stop kicking yourself." He tilted his head to look at the young Englishman. "Now let me see," he demanded.

The host put down the crisply ironed and folded shirt and the cellophane packets, stepped close into his guest's personal space and cupped the lean impassive face before him with one hand. Applied pressure to turn the jaw, ignoring the abortive attempt to wrench away.

He surveyed the swollen left cheek and the split lip intently, remarking conversationally:

"Georgian men are tactile towards one another, Sherlock. Kiss one another on greeting, link arms, put foreheads together. This is our normal. Get used to it."

"Thank you for the cultural advice. I doubt it is a behaviour that travels well. "

The Georgian put his head back and laughed.

"Ah! You do not disappoint me. So English! So like your brother!"

He paused then, concentrated, traced a line down the pale skin from ear to chin with a lightly touching middle finger. "But actually you are not like Mycroft at all, are you? However much you try."

"I don't try."

"Yes, you do. Ah, but do not mistake me. Your brother is admirable in many ways, not least how he wields extreme power with such wisdom and objectivity. But emotion would broaden him in many ways. And of course a part of him envies you your own particular strengths. Strengths he does not share, strengths he needs you for."

"Psychiatry for beginners, Tavari Sologashvili?"

"Don't scoff or retreat into formality. Simply tell me what it was that happened to you yesterday. Why a petty thief stopped you in your tracks."

"I was taken by surprise."

"Yes. That can happen. But you are used to that." He paused and considered, watched his guest drop his eyes out of focus rather than have them peered into. "So; you don't want to tell me? That is not acceptable."

The two men turned their heads fully to each other. Dark insight clashed with silvered implacability. Silence.

"I am Sirius, Sherlock Holmes. I have your brother's trust and so should have yours. Tell me what that thief said to you. I say thief….but he was no petty thief really, was he? So what did he say? It was an order, yes? Quick and sharp In a foreign language I did not recognise. What language?".

" Sinhalese."

The Georgian stepped back half a pace as he absorbed such unexpected information.

"So. Why is some petty thief in Tblisi speaking Sinhalese?"

"I. Don't Know." Each word punched out with a dark flat edge that should have killed the questions if not the conversation. "This is your city. You tell me."

The hand that still cupped his face softly turned then, the thumbnail digging into his cheek and being dragged down without either of them commenting on the push or the restrained lightness of the pain.

"I was not followed," Sherlock Holmes continued at that prompt. "I can sense a tail at a hundred yards. Front or back. In any case, no-one but Mycroft and you yourself knew I was coming here.

"There is no-one from Sri Lanka to target me, nor any reason for them to. What happened there was a single specific incident. And Sri Lanka was long ago. This has to be random." The deduction was rapidly but calmly spoken. He had clearly thought about the incident.

"I agree. But that was not what I asked. I asked to know what he said."

"He said: _Randu vanna eppa_. Do not fight."

"Why would that…?" Nico Sologashvili stopped in mid sentence. Sighed. Put his forehead down to rest against Sherlock Holmes' forehead as if he heard words unspoken and understood them. The hand that had been on the younger man's jaw had now insinuated itself round to the nape of the neck, holding the head close to his and still.

"You were kidnapped in Sri Lanka," he said softly, on a breath. "When you were a child. You were lost, and then found. Returned to your life to be a different person."

"Really? I forget."

The Georgian watched the face shutter closed, the neck arch high, the voice deliver indifference. He lifted his head and stepped back a tiny pace to study his visitor more closely.

"You do not ask me how I know that. You do not react to the question or the painful memory. If I did not know your brother so well I could be fooled by you. But I know your story, Sherlock. I knew it even then. Mycroft and I were at Oxford together."

"What a very happy experience that must have been for you."

He shrugged at the dismissive remark, and broke the intimate mood he himself had created.

"However, I mean nothing to you, nor you to me. My knowledge and my opinion should not matter to you. So why do you hide yourself from me?"

There was a tiny pause as the patrician head lowered again, some tension resolved.

"It is how I am. If you really know my brother as well as you say, you should understand. I remember Sir Lanka without emotion. That is past and what happened cannot be changed. At the time I did not deal well with what happened. But I was young. The process was useful as it achieved, as they say, a steep learning curve."

"Too harsh a judgement, my friend. Cause and effect are interesting and educational as well as informative. But you were already disturbed by something else about that man, before he even spoke. He reminded you of someone, I think. You said a name….."

"I - I….no. I didn't. I don't think….."

"You did. You spoke a name. You said 'Moriarty.'"

"No."

"If not, then how would I know it?"

"You know Mycroft. He could have told you. About Moriarty."

"I do know about Moriarty. But you spoke his name. He is dead yet he haunts you still."

"Dead? Until and unless I see his lifeless body and reduce it to ash he will never be dead. He is a spider. With so many legs and webs…." The consulting detective's words plunged to a halt, and he sucked in a breath. "I stood next to him while he shot himself in the head, and I saw his blood. I spent two years taking down his crime network. But I don't believe either have truly gone."

Nico Sologashvili shook his head and dropped his hand.

"I am distressing you. My apologies. Dress, then join me for breakfast. We have much to do today."

He smiled briefly at his guest, sketched a formal bow, turned and walked away. Leaving Sherlock Holmes speechless in his wake. Alone and overwhelmed

o0o0o

He knew he had been knocked unconscious for a moment - two? The solid tread of the combat boot had been aimed at his eyes, and if that kick had connected he would have been dead, or blinded at the very least.

It was only his rapid reactions that had saved him, but the imprint of the boot as it flickered across the side of his face lingered as an unsought trophy. As he blinked awake again - away, he knew, for only a half second - he was curled beneath the café table, vision blurred, head and neck hurting.

He had heard the man he knew as Sirius curse, run, heard the sound of his steps hurrying away with urgency.

Alone, abandoned, appalled, it took a moment to gather himself together, flex his jaw to see if it still worked, rub his aching face and roll his tongue around his teeth to make sure all were still in place. Gestured away the hands of the young café waitress, the elderly woman from the next table, as they tried to help him to his feet.

" _Ara_ " he muttered. " _Ara. Grnad iobt_." No. No thank you," he kept repeating, trying to to keep their suffocating concern at bay.

The footfalls that had left him running now returned more slowly.

"Lost him. Sorry," said the now familiar voice. " Are you OK?"

He did not answer, all concentration on getting back to his feet and regaining his balance and his dignity. The ground was wet beneath him, and he was as ashamed by what had happened and his weakness exposed, as he was angry about it. He felt more than saw the older man grasp the back of his neck in one big hand, and draw him firmly yet effortlessly upwards to stand shakily until an arm snaked impersonally around his waist and held him up, solid and secure.

"Are you concussed?"

"Might be."

"Walk."

There were swift apologies in Georgian, the princeling to the crowd, words he did not understand, tones of apology then sharp interest, a swift exchange between the Georgians surrounding him and then he was being carefully propelled back down the street until they reached the corner where the old Mercedes awaited them, the same dark haired girl at the wheel.

Seeing them, she opened the rear door and asked quickly: " _Ra mokhda?"_ What happened?

"Mr Potter had an accident. He has lost his luggage." The voice was urbane and unaffected. It reminded Sherlock of Mycroft.

The girl called Nia nodded, helped them inside, returned to the driving seat and moved the car swiftly and smoothly away.

The manic cacophony of driving through Tblisi was even more erratic than driving through Rome in the rush hour: the jolt and jostle making his headache worse. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass and tried not to groan.

He was very aware of the looks shooting back at him through the rear view mirror, the hand still clasped impersonally around his bicep to keep him upright. He knew he had to say something.

"He was wearing…..very old military fatigues….worn out. Faded. A size too big."

"Yes. I noticed. Gear all a bit too obvious for someone targeting you, surely?"

"Perhaps a disguise, perhaps that is all he has. But I would swear I was not targeted. That was - just - me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Feels like that. If planned it would have worked better, a better trap less open to variables, witnesses, flaws.

"He was also wearing a light nylon backpack. Like runners use. There were things in it…Not the right shapes for water bottles." The words came out staccato, the mind's eye revisited.

"The old lady at the next table said she drinks coffee there every day," Sologashvili nodded agreement "Says she has seen that man occasionally over the past few weeks. Shifty she says. Just a local petty thief, then?"

"No," the words - and the thought process behind them - were an effort. "Not local, not speaking Sinhalese. But in Tblisi long enough to know places and behaviours. And not _just_ a petty thief. He was not stealing fruit or bread to feed himself. Not stealing just anything for it's own sake. He was targeting his marks. Something specific."

"What? And why you?"

"Not sure. Angular things in the backpack. Small items, high return. Tech stuff, then. "Tablets and laptops and phones and cameras, probably. Yes

"Why me? Obvious foreigner. Leather shoulder bag. Expensive coat and shoes. Off balanced, not looking at him as he passed by. Took his chance, grabbed my bag."

"Nearly got away with it clean."

"Hmn."

"What was in the bag?"

"Nothing special. Just luggage for a trip abroad. Clean clothes, wash bag, that sort of thing."

"Even so. I shall contact the police, put the word out to my contacts. We shall try to retrieve your things."

"Thank you."

He closed his eyes against the disorientation and the pain, though he remained awake. He did not think he had slept, but when he opened his eyes again the Mercedes had stopped, and they were on a terraced narrow street in the old town, with views across the gorge of the Mtkvari River and in front of a tall ancient building of yellow brick with ornate powder blue and pastel green balconies and canopies.

"Fairytale house," he muttered.

"This was my great uncle's' town house. In the family for generations. And now it is mine."

The Georgian opened the ancient nail studded wooden door as Nia drive the car away Somewhere in the distance a bell tinkled.

"Pressure pad," Sherlock Holmes muttered automatically. "Electronic dead locks."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Tomorrow. Everything will wait until tomorrow. When you feel better and are rested," Sirius declared with natural command.

"No, now. No time to waste. I need facts….."

"You need pills and tea and sleep. In that order. Come."

More shaken by the altercation at the market than he was prepared to admit, Sherlock Holmes had no option than to be taken by the arm and steered across the long tiled hall, past the collection of oil paintings and family portraits, and up the sweeping mahogany stairs.

"Just relax, Mr Potter. You are totally safe here in my home, and with people who understand your mission and actively want to help you. Do remember that your brother and I have been friends and colleagues for many years."

"Suspect statement. Mycroft does not have friends."

"Not many, certainly."

The hand on his arm tightened, guided his stumbling steps upwards and along a well lit corridor towards a grand bedroom of elegant cream Louis Quinze furniture with deep windows and a canopied balcony. He was carefully sat down into a Duchesse brisee divided chair, and firmly told to 'stay put for a moment' and took the opportunity to slump down a little and draw breath, allow the pain in his head and neck to release and be passed through.

He was still sitting like that when the young woman called Nia came softly to him, knelt down at his side and put a hand on his knee to attract his attention.

Opening his eyes, he saw honey brown eyes, very close to his, and a little frown.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Thank you…Nia. Mrs Sologashvili is it? _Kalbat'oni_ Sologashvili?"

She smiled and patted his hand.

"Certainly not. But your courteous attempts at our native language are appreciated; not many people bother. But stop thinking and relax, now. Otherwise I may have to put you to bed for your own good."

She grinned at the unguarded look of alarm on his face.

"Ah! That got through the woolly head, I think! You are a very attractive man Mr Potter. Or Mr Holmes, or whatever name you are going by here in Georgia. But I would not dream of taking advantage of you. Not until you are feeling better, anyway."

He made a low noise of protest and struggled to sit up, but she put a hand on his shoulder and shushed him.

"No need for that. I have brought you a tray. Codeine and a glass of water. A pot of English Breakfast tea. A thermos of soup and some sandwiches."

She gestured to the napkin covered tray on the side table.

"Swallow. Eat. Drink and sleep. I shall see you in the morning."

As she moved to leave, Sirius _(Nico in his own home, surely? Passing thought_. _Categorisation. Familiarisation_ ) returned. In his arms, pyjamas, a dressing gown, slippers, a basket of toiletries.

"Make yourself comfortable and relax. I will let Mycroft know you are here safely."

"Don't tell him what happened at the market."

"No? Why is that?"

"Because he is too nosey as it is. And that bores me."

The older man laughed, put down the items in his arms and was gone.

Leaving Sherlock Holmes to prepare for a rare early night's sleep.

And lean back into the goose feather pillows beneath the crisp linen sheets and brocade drapes. Look up at the gilt and white rococo ceiling. And finally ease his throbbing head. And sleep.

o0o0o

They met as if by coincidence in the hall as Sherlock Holmes came down the sweeping stairs for breakfast. Sirius did not offer a greeting, simply opened cream double doors to the right with a flourish.

"Behold." he said with the air of a magician presenting a trick.

"This was - is - the grand ballroom," he explained and stood back for Sherlock Holmes to appreciate the startling splendour of the high gilded room, with it's galleried recesses, gilded cherubs rampant along the walls, blue star studded ceiling, plush dusty blue velvet hangings.

And then the richness of the items on the obsidian floor. Oil paintings and furniture, statues and wardrobes, chairs and screens and benches and armoires. Arranged in their ranks marching up and around the magnificent room. Standing on priceless ancient handmade Berber carpets.

Artwork of richness beyond compare. And at the epicentre of the room, bronze statues of two life-sized Nubian lions on marble plinths. Lions facing each other, one passant, one statant, but clearly a matched pair. Ancient, special…..and tarnished with smoke and fire, embraced with burns. Superior survivors.

The mythological lions of Georgia. Lions of folklore and art. Statuary of international import. And here, precisely where they should not be, hidden behind more beauty, in the ballroom of Tavardi Nico Sologashvili's ancient town house. Not in a museum or a national gallery, not in the government building or a presidential palace. But just here.

In a private house in the old town, surrounded by other works of art, other riches of Georgian heritage.

As a scholar with an eidetic memory, Sherlock Holmes recognised the very style and the shape of the lions. Their mythology and pedigree. Their place on the Georgian coat of arms, their importance to Georgian history and culture.

And the damage they bore, worn with such magnificence - scouring damage, and relatively new - identified this particular pair of lions. The national treasures that had been in the British Embassy in Tblisi six years ago, when siege and death, fire and thunder, had laid lives and location to waste.

"What are these doing here? They are the lions from the siege, aren't they? Why…..?"

Sherlock Holmes turned to the tall elegant man standing at his side. Who smiled as he recognised his guest's recognition of what he saw. Inclined his head as if he had just been complimented. And Sherlock Holmes could not help himself, had to ask:

"Just who are you, Nico Sologashvili? And what do you do? Exactly?"

o0o0o

Hilary Weatherstone, short and stout in that hinterland of the late Forties, yet not unattractive in a clumsily beige and humdrum way, put his hands into the trouser pockets of his beautifully tailored grey virgin wool houndstooth suit and regarded the two enviously tall dark and handsome men who had just entered his office.

The more flamboyant Nico Sologashvili he knew only too well. But the younger and slighter man at his side had a quieter and more contained bearing, a closed down public school arrogance that spoke of intelligence and breeding rather than new money and class culture.

"Good morning, Hilary," Nico Sologashvilli crossed the room with total confidence and shook his hand. Then turned back to wave a formal hand to the stranger who lingered in the doorway.

"To make formal introduction: Deputy Head Of Mission to Tblisi and to Georgia, Your Excellency Hilary Weatherstone, please allow me to introduce you to my singular acquaintance Mr Selwyn Potter. You should have much in common.

"Not least Mr Potter's elder brother, who served with you here in a junior capacity some years ago. I am sure you remember."

Hilary looked more intently at the newcomer. Nodded to himself.

"So. You are Sherlock. I have heard so much about you, and am pleased to finally meet you. " He stepped from behind his desk and held out a hand. " Sirius is quite right. Your brother and I worked here together some years ago. Mycroft has had a meteoric rise in the service, which he has well deserved. He is quite exceptional, and clearly his little brother is too."

Nico Sologashvili watched an unexpected smile flash across the young man's features, and transform them into something attractive and youthful for a revealing moment before the features schooled themselves back into stillness.

"Thank you," was the simple and unguarded reply. And the older men exchanged a glance; recognised a rare transparency in the enigma before them.

"But you are not here to exchange pleasantries. You are here to learn more about the siege six years ago. Am I right?"

"Yes. And it is reassuring to see such a cataclysmic event could never be repeated at this new British Embassy."

All three men looked around the stark modern office, out of the windows of the impressive basalt hilltop building that overlooked Tblisi in one direction, the Kvtami Hills and the Jura Valley in the other, and recognised that in it's ultra modern fortress design with bomb blast security exterior of metal screens and underground car park, was now one of the most impenetrable and defensive armoured buildings in the world.

"Lessons were learnt," Hilary Weatherstone answered smoothly in his best diplomatic tones.

"What you mean is, the siege should never have happened nor been allowed to go on for so long. But the Rose Revolution had opened doors to Georgia and the former Russian satellites and reopened contact between East and West. So temporary accomodation had to be found in a hurry. Which turned out as flawed as it was essential."

"Quite so, Mr Holmes. Yes indeed."

"You are prepared to tell me what happened?"

The big question, the purpose of leaving London for Georgia.

Hilary Weatherstone looked, and measured the man before him.

"You understand that this was an incident which came out well for no-one? There were too many deaths. Even one death was too many, that must be understood. And bear in mind what happened here six years ago has never been made public." He paused, the slightest hint of warning.

"There is a fifty year embargo on releasing paperwork ion what happened. Yet there are still holes in our knowledge - one of the reasons for the limitation. Too many warring connections and involvements. Too delicate a situation all round.

"Indeed so. But why else would I be here enquiring about this?"

"A good question which I should ask you myself."

"I am here to find the truth, Mr Weatherstone. With the support and encouragement of my brother and of Lady Elizabeth Smallwood."

The diplomat dipped his head and concentrated.

"Lady Smallwood was close to events. Pushed re-establishment of the embassy here. She had experience of life in Georgia, you see. From her younger days as a competitive international athlete. And even if she did not direct operations while the siege was on, she kept a very close eye on events. But I expect you knew that?"

The 'yes' in response was terse. If the two older men had known him better they would have recognised the reply was a lie.

 _She did not tell me. Mycroft did not tell me. Is that a factor or just a failure of fact? Does it mean something meaningful? Or mean nothing at all?_

"Is investigation reopening, then? I had not been told. But it would make sense. No-one ever got to the bottom of it, you know. Too complex. Too many factors. Too few witnesses surviving….."

"I am interested in specifics. As far as generalities are concerned, it is too early yet to say," Sherlock Holmes said smoothly. "Give me the chance."

"I will tell you as much as I can. Bear in mind I wasn't part of the siege itself. Everyone held in the siege died. It was my day off when the attack happened so I had to watch everything from the outside. I have felt guilty about that ever since."

"No need. Luck of the draw."

"So everyone tells me."

"Begin at the beginning."

Hilary Weatherstone sighed, gestured to his guests to sit within the cluster of armchairs in a corner of his office there for informal meetings, and they did so.

"In the beginning," he said smoothly, "after the Revolution, there was a rush to get foreign representation - 63 consulates all told, all scrambling for position - into Georgia to bridge that vital gap between the West and Russia. To hold a balance between politics and cultures. The United Kingdom in it's wisdom established our Embassy in a city centre hotel until this state of the art and far more suitable replacement could be built.

"The UK has always been a friend to Georgia, always supported her people, mainly through innate understanding of Georgian arts and culture arriving from the advantage of that historic Oxford connection.

"Something of a unique connection across many years, and one we have always been keen to promote. So, as the new Georgia found her feet, a major exhibition to celebrate this was planned. Georgian and British art, showing together, reflecting mutual influence and inspiration. A soft strengthening of ties that are, in fact, wire hawsers between the natiions.

"When the siege began this prestigious exhibition, long in the planning, was about to open. The important preview for special guests by invitation was taking place. The siege was perfectly timed and well planned, to take advantage of the influx of important international visitors and a natural if regrettable slight relaxation of security."

"How did that happen?" Sherlock Holmes's question was as obvious as it was pointed.

Hilary Weatherstone squirmed a little in his seat.

"It does not behove me to speak ill of the dead…." he began.

"But?" was the harsh prompt. And Nico Sologashvili, from the sidelines, watched the younger man with no authority within the Georgian British Embassy claim his own authority. "Everyone concerned are all dead, remember. You can neither slander nor libel the dead. And between these four walls, between we three, what you tell Tavari Sologashvili and myself will go no further and would certainly not be attributed if it did.

"I need to get to the very heart of this siege and what happened, because it is still having repercussions I am here to close down. So just tell me. Tell us."

Hilary Weatherstone looked at him sharply. Opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

"Allow me to help you with a little prompt or two," Sherlock Holmes continued smoothly. "I imagine you are trying to work out how to tell me about the late Ambassador and her role in this without sounding disloyal?"

"How did you…..? Oh, never mind. You reputation goes before you," the Deputy Head Of Mission said on a sigh. And capitulated.

"Julia Tregannon was always headstrong and opinionated. But she had charm and elegance, so her forcefulness was most often successful, and as a female amabassador she was still seen as something of a trailblazer. She could cut through obfuscation and procrastination, and if she got her teeth into something, it usually worked. Eventually.

"It was felt her feminine strength of character could work well here. The thorn behind the roses of a rose revolution, if you will. And to some extent it did. A breath of fresh air, modern female wiles up against old fashioned Soviet coloured strategies. A new and fresh advantage. You understand?

"The arts exhibition was like that. She understood the importance of such things in Georgia, how it would give the UK an advantage, pre-eminence and position. It was her driving force and refusal to take 'no' for an answer that got so many people in line to make this exhibition happen. It was a feather in her cap."

"Yes, I understand."

"Her husband and children had come out from England for a holiday, to display her importance and that of the exhibition, and also to show her their emotional support, as well as to just see the exhibition. So when the attack team struck with the advantage of total surprise, it was a complete and utter disaster."

"No-one would expect such an altruistic arts event to be the subject of a political rallying cry and meltdown," Sologashvili volunteered.

"Indeed so, "Weatherstone agreed.. "Unless you look at it from the other side of the mirror. The arts unify and speak freedom and expression for every nation. So in this case the attack was complicated as those involved came from different ideologies with a common cause.

"In the twelve man attack team there were Georgians who supported the new political freedom and wanted to push it further. Georgians who wanted the safe and controlling umbrella of Russia returned to power. And a couple of idealistic nihilists who felt politics did not matter, and the cause of international art was all. It made the strike very complex, and as far as anyone who has a need to know about the event, we hold true to the convenient fiction that the perpetrators were Russian leaning terrorists.

"But the attack went wrong - and the political statement was blighted, the factions holding the siege began to fight within themselves. To fight each other and the authorities, to hold out, to make even wilder demands and threats and political statements, to become violent and unpredictable."

"And then instead of being placatory and diplomatic, Ambassador Tregannon stamped her foot, refused to yield her position or reconcile, and made the situation even worse," Sherlock Holmes hazarded.

"Just so. " Hilary Weatherstone shook his head. "There were twenty three very important hostages from several nations held under siege conditions in the _Akhali Imp'erii Sast'umro,_ the New Empire Hotel, and none of them could afford to be lost. Even though, finally, they were."

"Why did diplomacy fail to gain their release? Why did force ultimately fail also?"

Hilary Weatherstone scowled, shook his head, buried his hands deeper into his pockets in an anger and regret that had never left him. "Julia Tregannon was the reason diplomacy failed. She was angry and hot headed, and refused to be cowed or clever. Or subtle. Every problem she exacerbated. Every advantage she wasted. She was intent on scoring points, Winning the individual little battles and forgetting she was meant to win the war.

"The position of the exhibition and the hotel was very hard to attack. The hotel was hemmed tight in by other public buildings - no clear lines of observation, protection or attack.

"Then the exhibition itself was in the worst possible place within the building - on the top floor. And with an Edwardian observatory and skylight roof, stealth in approach was utterly impossible. Any breach would be the ultimate commitment. A once and for all attack to free the hostages would have to be the only chance, as well as the last chance.

"Attempts were made to probe the defences, to attack, and they all failed. The results were….not good. By the time the private mercenary team of RAGA was brought in, it was the last chance to break the siege, save the hostages. An all or nothing attempt from a small team of professionals who had a good record in similar snatch and save situations."

"And who, as mercenaries, could be denied by everyone and anyone if the rescue went wrong," Sologashvili pointed out.

"I could not possibly comment on that, Sirius," Hilary Weatherstone replied, smoothly diplomatic.

"AGRA," Sherlock Holmes corrected.

"Sorry?"

"AGRA. Not RAGA."

"In my dealings with the team during the siege they were always referred to as RAGA. You know what a raga is?"

"Of course I do. Just as I know that Agra is a world heritage site city in Uttar Pradesh where the Taj Mahal is situated, I know a raga is a melodic framework in Indian classical music that has no western equivalent. Neither of which is at all relevant to the truth of this particular grouping," Sherlock Holmes said shortly.

He dipped his head in rapid thought, and the other two men in the room watched him. Watched his head rise, watched the laser light sharpen behind his eyes,

"We are talking here about a four man - four person," he corrected himself " - team. The team known as AGRA. Aleksandr Sor. Gabriel Gratz. Ro Adams. Ajay Moopanar."

The eyes focussed inwards, a dramatic little gesture of fingertips to temples in thought.

"Oh. Now I see. Oh my God. Yes, I see. Yes RAGA, That puts a different complexion on everything, Mr Weatherstone."

He flashed a look towards Nico Sologashvili that was utterly blank in it's ferocity.

"Mr Weatherstone, your help has been invaluable. Thank you very much."

And he strode away and out of the office, leaving Sirius to apologise, say farewell and run to catch up in his wake. And wonder what - exactly - was going on?

o0o0o

They strode across the twisting narrow streets of the old city after Nia dropped them off on one of the main city through roads. Sherlock Holmes demanded to see where the siege had happened, and although Sirius explained that the hotel has been razed after the resulting bombing and fire, he still insisted. So they walked and they talked.

"What is significant in the difference in name when dealing with the attack team? It was the same people, surely? No substitutes?" The Georgian asked as he hurried to keep up with the younger Englishman. "Just semantics to muddy the waters, is it?"

"Not at all. Far more important. A matter of who was in charge of the mission at the time. And how significant is that? Puts a difference complexion on things, you see."

"Why?"

"Oh, Sirius. Never underestimate the importance of a chain of command. Aleksandr Sor, the Ukranian, was usually the team leader of AGRA. So the change here was significant."

"Why?"

"Because the British Ambassador was known to be obdurate, was a committed feminist. At the sharp end, in the final analysis, in action, it would be hoped she would cooperate quickly and more easily with another woman in charge of her rescue."

"I don't understand."

"But I do," was the electric reply. "Which is all that matters."

"Sherlock!" Nico Sologashvili grasped him by the shoulder, vexed. And for a moment, as the consulting detective raised his arm to block the hold, there was a shift of power, a hiss of anger, that made the urbane Georgian step sharply backwards.

"What is it? Something is troubling you. Tell me!"

He was standing too close, he realised suddenly. He saw the unfathomable silver eyes flash, the body posture change from alert to danger.

"Nothing to do with you, old chap. Back off." The arcane public school words were denied by the venom of their delivery.

And, unable to believe he was actually doing it, Nico Sologashvili did. He stepped back and broke the eye contact between them that was sharp and suddenly verging on savage.

"I…." he fumbled for words when faced with Sherlock Holmes' demons. Gestured placatingly with his hands and shook his head. Turned away from the ferocity that was too close. "This is where the New Empire Hotel stood. You see the limitations of the site. How easy it was for the raiders to take command of everything."

Sherlock Holmes stood and looked at the anonymous new concrete slab that had replaced what an been an impressive Edwardian structure of red brick and mahogany with deep serpentine windows. Instead of an elegant hotel, the space was now just another anonymous concrete section office block. Home to insurance companies and a travel agency. Wilfully demoted from the attention of history.

An enclosed site on a steep hill, between two other Edwardian hotels that would have been similar. While the narrow road in front of them had a steep drop on one side, falling sharply away to the river gorge.

"Yes, I see," Sherlock Holmes mused. "Poor sight lines. Little and limited access from the front alone. Hard obbo. No hiding places. No close up, no run up. Yes. Explains so much."

He strode away again. Through the narrow dark alleyway upsides the new building. Behind it a maze of smaller and much older buildings, peasant homes and industrial workshops. A bakery, a pottery, an industrial catering unit, a cobbler's shop, a place that seemed to manufacture cardboard boxes.

People and handcarts came and went, there was the sounds of conversation, machinery, presses and automated hammers, telephones ringing, voices raised. A busy hub of low tech industry and endeavour. Humdrum and active, yet unremarkable.

"A difficult spot," he said, pausing between the pottery and the cobbler's shop, spinning on his heel in a swirl of overcoat Observing and calculating. "The terrorists chose well. The British government chose badly. Easy to defend, but impossible to attack or recapture."

"Quite so," Sologashvili replied. At that moment he was Sirius, Colleague of Mycroft Holmes. Observer of Sherlock Holmes. Helpful but puzzled.

"What are you doing here, Sherlock?" What is the puzzle? What is the problem?"

For a moment he did not think he had been heard through the filter of such fierce concentration, was not going to get a reply. But finally an answer came.

"Unfinished business. A puzzle. Six years ago there was a siege here and everyone died. So why are there whispers suddenly being asked about it in the international community? Whispers coming out of intel? What about? What does it mean? Other than danger. Death, is it? For someone."

"What has this to do with you?"

"That is the question, Sirius. And the answer - regrettably - is probably everything. Everyone. My brother. His colleague. My best…my colleague. His wife. A vow. Need to fix things. Need a solution."

"I haven't a clue what you are talking about. Have you?"

"Regrettably yes." Sherlock Holmes sighed, frowned. "But now I need a coffee. Can we find one?"

The mood lightened. Nico Sologashvili laughed. Slapped the younger man on the shoulder.

"That problem I can solve for you!"

Which was when the mobile phone made it's incoming text sound. When Sherlock Holmes dug his hand into his pocket and looked impassively at the new message.

 **Your god-daughter wants to see you. Where are you? M**

A text he immediately deleted.

o0o0o

There were seven more texts, all saying the same thing in various ways.

He did not reply to any of them. But on the way home from the airport the next day, he found himself in the maternity wing of the Royal London Hospital, angry, committed, glowering, reluctant.

When he entered the side ward he was mortified to see Mary Watson on her own, sitting up in the bed and breast feeding her baby.

He had taken two strides into the room before he realised what was happening, then averted his face, turned on his heel, and stepped outside again without saying a word.

He could feel his face flaming. His anger rising.

"Sherlock! Come back! It's OK! Look! I'll put her down! If it bothers you….."

Her voice trailed off as he stopped dead in the doorway and half turned back to her.

"It doesn't bother me," he corrected. "Nature and all that. I just find it all….very boring. Distasteful. And I have better things to do than answer your summons. Than this."

"Yes, I understand that. I'm sorry."

"So you should be. I don't want to be here. Why did you want to see me? Something important, at the very least?"

"I texted. You never replied. Yet you said you would come to the hospital to see us. After you delivered my baby in the back of the car. But you didn't come. I…I missed you."

"You are simply feeling emotional at an emotional time in your life. Hormone imbalance. Make your own allowances and don't involve me."

She coloured under the coldness of his gaze. At the disapproval coming off him in waves.

"Where have you been?" The question was stumbling and automatic, to fill his silence.

"Why should you care or want to know?" He shrugged. Said the first thing that came into his head. "Boulogne, Brighton, Bognor Regis. Anywhere; it doesn't matter to you, and not your concern,"

"Bugger Bognor," she responded automatically. Smiled at that old joke. His eyes lifted to hers and he pulled a breath and smiled cautiously back.

"Come, Please. Say hello to your god daughter," Mary Watson took advantage of the slight softening of his attitude. Held out the quiet blanket wrapped bundle in her arms.

"Hold her. Go on. She won't bite."

He did not cross the room to her, avoided looking at the baby. Met her eyes in a look that turned cold and empty as she watched it alter.

"I am not interested in your child. It is merely another burden to be responsible for."

"Another burden. Does that mean John and me as well as this little one?"

"Yes." There was no heart or humanity in him at that moment. Nothing of the softer side of him she knew he possessed, however much he denied it. " I made you a vow. To protect all three of you. I never knew…" he broke off what he was going to say. "I should never….."

"Oh, Sherlock!" She could not stop the crack in her voice, or reaching out to him.

He stepped back instinctively.

"No. Don't you dare try and suck me in. Don't you dare try."

"Sherlock….."

"The yummy mummy pose doesn't fool me, Mary. It fools John, but it doesn't fool me. You are a mercenary. A killer. And I know as well as you do that once a killer, always a killer.

"So when are you planning to kill me?"

Even as she gasped in response to his angry question, part of her wondered how long that had been sitting in his mind, behind his eyes, on the tip of his tongue.

"Never. You must know….never."

She was suddenly on the edge of tears. This was a time of too much emotion. He was right.

"I owe you so much. Why can't you understand that? I owe you my life. If you had told the police who shot you…I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't have John. This baby would have been born in Holloway Prison. I would have been in court, tried and found guilty. My life would have ended. And by association, I would have ended John's, too. How could the husband of a killer continue his own career as a doctor afterwards? When he would have been contaminated for the rest of his life by association with me?

"Yet you…" words failed her as the enormity of what he had saved her from by his silence and loyalty overwhelmed her anew. "I can never, ever, replay you for this. For what my life is now. And if it all ended tomorrow - I would still owe you for everything I have at this moment. And no-one can take this away from me. This joy."

She could feel tears pricking at her eyes, turned a naked beseeching face to him, aware and without any pretence of dignity or self possession.

He watched her, silent and impassive, knowing she was deliberately and honestly letting him read in her face and her body language all she felt within her, and her debt to him.

But there was all he knew. And it was too much.

A shudder passed through him, and was concealed.

"I am a freak," he said dispassionately. "Do try not to forget that."

Even as the words passed his lips with all the detachment he could command, he wondered why he was doing this - standing as far back from his little self proclaimed family as he could, denying his own humanity, twisting the knife in her heart at a time when it was and should be rejoicing.

But there was a discomfort within him that had been haunting his subconscious and niggling at his brain ever since the knock on the front door at Nico Sologashvili's house the evening before.

They had been lingering over dinner, talking and sharing a bottle of wine, when the knock on the outside door disturbed them.

"Expecting visitors?"

"No. I will deal with it. Wait."

The Georgian crossed the room, went into the ornate hall. Sherlock Holmes heard the door open, brief and rapid conversation in Georgian he could not understand.

So he was more than a little surprised when Sirius returned holding his leather overnight bag in one hand.

"Yours, I think. You see? I told you we would find this if we could."

He put the bag down on the walnut table beside Sherlock Holmes' disgarded fruit plate.

"How? Where?"

His hands were opening the bag, ignoring the broken lock he had expected, beginning to check the contents.

"One of my team of street Arabs on the alert found it in a litter bin. Just a few hundred yards from where it was stolen. So it has been checked through and then disgarded, probably before we even arrived here last night. What is missing?"

He looked up to meet the Georgian's eyes, recognising the assumption, stilled his hands.

"Shirts, knickers, nightwear; everything seems to be here."

He delved into the leather washbag. Razor, product, soap, cologne. But the black flannel in it's plastic wallet was crumpled now, and not folded as it had been. And what had been carefully concealed within the folds was gone.

Nico Sologashvili watched the lean hands clench convulsively and then still.

"What is missing?" he repeated.

"Nothing much…." was the distracted reply. "Just a memory stick. Nothing important on it, nothing of value."

 _Nothing of financial value. Just photographs. Photographs of Mary. Snaps taken at 221B, formal photographs from the wedding. Shots of guests from the bride's side he had not known. Shots of Mary and of those people at the wedding Sirius or embassy staff might recognise from the past, who may have made their presence known six years ago._

 _People - Mary - in photographs he had never had the chance to show anyone else. Memories he had been unable to prompt._

He thought quickly, mind mapping what he had put onto the memory stick. Careful to avoid time signatures, any identifying aspects of the photographs, his care to keep as much as he could show in the photographs straightforward and anonymous.

But there were inevitably pictures of Mary. Of John. Of himself. Links that could be read by anyone who might know what they were looking at and reading. Pictures and links that had been meant to help connect and identify. On his own behalf only, though. Not for anyone else.

He frowned, computing.

 _Had he made a mistake? Could those photographs lay a trail, give direction, provide information?_

 _Yet …..and yet…..be sensible! Who would be looking for Mary, to find her secrets - apart from him? Who could or would recognise Mary Morstan, or want to find her?_

 _There was no-one. No-one! They were all dead. Dead and gone. Otherwise, surely, all this time on, someone - something - would have already surfaced by now? Of course it would have! He was just looking for trouble where none existed. Too hard wired to expect danger round every corner. Expecting panic. Acknowledging all too easily that something could - and often did - go wrong._

 _Had he made a mistake? Had he inadvertently put then all at risk? Stuck his head above the parapet and waved in all innocence in a way that would attract someone's attention? Someone as yet unknown? Unknown to him - but someone Mary might be aware of?_

A shudder of premonition worked it's way up his spine. Sirius saw it.

"What is it, Sherlock? Tell me!"

"Nothing," he had heard himself say distantly. "A goose just walked over my grave."

Now, twenty fours hours later, the goose turned round and stomped straight back over the grave once again.

"Sherlock! What is it? What aren't you telling me? Sherlock!"

He came back to himself in the here and now. Back to the little side ward. To the mother and her baby. So now she looked slowly back at him, eyes distracted. The lingering absent smile on his face did not reassure her.

"I always get something wrong, Mary. Did I ever tell you that? And if I ever told you that, did you ever believe me?"

She shook her head, puzzled.

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Everything. Take no notice of me."

There was a flurry of hands, a jolt backwards. The bag carried across his body bounced a little.

"I get very worried when you say things like that," she said as calmly as she could.

"Perhaps," he hummed in agreement. "But that is because you don't tell me everything. You have not been honest with me, Mary."

"What? How? What about?"

"Agra, Mary. You took a risk telling John and me about Agra. But you were backed into a corner, weren't you? You could see John was out of his head with anger, and that I was probably dying before your eyes.

"So you took the gamble that John would be true to himself and his love for you - honest and transparent and that he would trust you. That he would never look inside that memory stick of yours."

"I…don't….see…."

"But I saw, Mary. I looked, and I read. And then I thought I knew all there was to know about you. But you are a woman of secrets. Secrets still. More secrets, even now." His voice was hard again, his silver unreadable eyes glittered down at her. "I underestimated."

" Why did the Agra file not mention the capacity to move on and into Raga? That you were even more lethal than you seemed? Than I ever even thought you were. Are."

Something flashed through the air towards him then. Thrown from her hand, even as she sat up in her hospital bed, with a speed of reaction he had barely half anticipated in that place, at that time.

His right hand rose as quickly in front of his face as hers had thrown, protecting his eyes, guarding his heart and his honesty. Caught the missile she had reached for and thrown, with an instinct faster than thought.

Yet his reaction had been faster.

There was a moment when action and thought, reaction and protection, hung in the air between them. And they looked at each other. Impasse.

Slowly he rotated his hand in front of his face and glanced away from her eyes and up, to see what he held.

Between his fingers something shining and metallic. Scissors. Tiny scissors meant for Baby Watson, for awkward tufts of hair or tiny baby nails. He might have laughed, on another day, in another mindset.

 _But not now. Never now. Dangerous every day. Even more dangerous when cornered. Shoots to kill. Uses any weapon or potential weapon that comes to hand. Trust, if not the person, trust in the capacity for self defence as attack._

He looked back at her. Frozen, silent, the vehemence behind his eyes saying it all for her to read.

"My God," she said. "Oh my God,,,,"

Her hands went to her face, eyes wide and aghast.

"I didn't mean…I could have killed you….I…."

"No chance," he said, low and distinct. "And you will never get that chance again. Do you understand me?"

A sob such as he had never heard before escaped from her throat. She didn't heed it.

"I don't want to kill you! For God's sake, Sherlock! If anything, it's my turn to save you! Have you not heard a single word I have said since I shot you?"

"Yes. Every single word. And I wanted to believe every one of them. But action always speaks louder than words. So now look at you. At what you have just done. So. Saving who, Mary? Certainly not me."

"Sherlock! I would die for you! I swear!"

He placed the little scissors carefully on the foot of the bed and out of her reach..

Turned and walked away. Ignored the sound of her calling his name. Of her baby beginning to wail in sympathy. Ignored it all.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

Great Panjandrum: An authoritative character in a series of comic books by late Victorian cartoonist Randolph Caldecott based on a line of gibberish poetry written by author Samuel Foote.

Pasha: A high ranking officer or governor in Turkey or the Ottoman Empire. Equivalent to a knighthood in the UK.

Sri Lanka: Sherlock's experiences in Sri Lanka are explained in the long story that precedes this one, _The Magnussen Legacy._

Duchesse brisee divided chair; typically Baroque, consists of two identical upholstered armchairs which can be parted and used separately or with a footstool/seat which conjoins the two like a jigsaw puzzle to create a single sofa like unit.

British Embassy, Tblisi: In both real time and actuality the British Embassy at the time of the siege was indeed within a city hotel, and was replaced shortly afterwards by a purpose built centre with offices and fortified official domestic accommodation for the Ambassador. The new embassy is purpose built on the hilltop site of a former hospital and is an impressive and strongly defended ultra modern building with thermal heating and automatic security screens. In this case of storytelling Mark Gatiss' choice of basic location and background closely follow reality, although the siege and it's results are fiction. Tblisi has also had real female British ambassadors in charge of the embassy there since the Rose Revolution reopened Georgia to the west.

The New Empire Hotel ( _Akhali Imper'iis Sast'umro)_ is my own literary creation for the sake of the storyline, and not intended to reflect any real life building - or situation - within Tblisi.

The fictional siege in T6T which involves the AGRA team is never explained nor justified within the original base plot of _The Six Thatchers_ , so a credible reason for it has to be created and carried through. As there has never been directly aggressive nor difficult diplomatic relations between the UK and Georgia per se, the reason for the siege had to be both something other and of a different type of complexity, while a multinational element as complication may explain both the unusual length of such a siege (three months) and part of the difficulty of bringing any resolution to it.

Rose Revolution: The pro western change of power in Georgia in 2003 removed autocratic Russian power in the country with the ousting of President Eduard Shevardnadze to return the country to democracy. The title comes from the crucial moment when Protesters stormed Parliament with roses in hand.

Hilary Weatherstone: Odd as this may sound, it is a real name. Rare, and from the Scottish borders, first recorded in 1604. Like Evelyn, Kay, Cecil, Constant and Ashley, Hilary is a forename for both sexes.

Bugger Bognor: King George V convalesced from illness in Bognor, a Sussex seaside town, and added the title 'Regis' (of the king) to it's name to mark this. In his final illness it was suggested that when he was well enough, he could return again to Bognor to recuperate. His reply was - 'Bugger Bognor.' The phrase is often and incorrectly ascribed as his final words, which in fact were reportedly 'God damn you' to a nurse who was delivering a sedative.

'A goose walked over my grave' is a way of expressing a premonition.


	5. Chapter 5

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 5

 _And thus the heart will break, and brokenly live on_

 _(Byron Childe Harold)_

"Just who are you, Nico Sologashvili? And what do you do? Exactly?"

For a moment he thought the other man was not going to answer him. He just sat and looked. A sharp, intent regard. Sherlock Holmes looked back impassively, saying no more.

And for a time they remained like that. Intellects engaged. No quarter given. But finally Nico Sologashvili dipped his head in a curiously old fashioned gesture, a smile was offered and accepted with a slight nod.

"You ask a big question. I am deciding how to answer you. How much to give."

"Clearly."

The Georgian stood and made a courtly gesture.

"Please, come. Share breakfast with me."

The walked the length of that remarkable room side by side and in a suspended sort of professional accord that neither broke nor established barriers between them.

The hexagonal breakfast table within the deep bow window was Regency. Inlaid walnut covered with Irish linen napery. Fruit, cereals and nuts rested on the table, and covered hot dishes stood on the matching buffet alongside.

The host took wholemeal toast and scrambled eggs, black coffee and fruit juice and sat with his back to the view of the old town. Sherlock Holmes took a cup of Russian caravan tea neat and put some white grapes on a fruit plate. Sat to one side of the table, knowing the morning light would magnify every movement of his features for Sirius to read if he had sat in the natural place opposite, with all the light falling on his face.

Saw his host read the reason for him choosing to sit where he had and smile in recognition and acceptance.

"Is that all you want?"

"I rarely eat breakfast."

"Which is how you remain so admirably slim?"

No answer was forthcoming except a tight social smile, so Nico Sologashvili addressed his breakfast and spoke at the same time.

"What do you think of my special room?"

"As a room - it is a rare and romantic survival of a golden age in history. As a storage space for far too many important antiques and artefacts…I have to assume you are a rather high class specialist dealer who sees clients at home and only by appointment, which accounts for the extensive security, the hidden cameras and the richness and variety of your stock.

"Very good."

"This is precisely what I would expect as a career path for someone as highborn as you. Although a tad predictable, perhaps. A bit…shallow."

" Do I hear a 'but?'" Sirius smiled in something like approval.

"But this would also be the perfect cover for someone who is clearly some sort of agent. I would suspect, as you say you are a friend of Mycroft, that you are an agent working with or for him. But in which area I could not say."

The smile was fixed, but Sirius did not attempt to stem the stream of deduction.

"MI5? MI6? A double agent between Georgia and Great Britain? Or perhaps even a shared agent, knowing the friendly and mutually supportive connections between the two nations."

"Very good."

"But there is more, isn't there?"

"Why do you think so? Tell me."

"The lions, for a start. What would the lions from the siege be doing in your ballroom six years after the event unless the lions are waiting for something? Or unless they are actually yours? Or waiting for something and are actually yours? That would make sense."

The Georgian nodded, smiling more openly now as if at a bright pupil.

"Golden lions are the ancient symbol of Georgia and her power - just like in England. Like Trafalgar Square and British heraldry. Yes? Here in Georgia princely families like mine have always had their own lions. Coats of arms, blazons, gateposts. Signs of local authority and power. These Sologashvili lions were a part of the exhibition that brought the two nations together. They will be again."

"Your patriotism is showing."

"Nothing wrong with that. Try it yourself sometime."

"Why ever else would I be here?"

"Personal reasons, public motives." The Georgian nodded, assessing in his turn. "You are a complex man and you are on a mission. Lady Smallwood trusts you. Your brother trusts you. A whisper of intelligence has risen from the ground here in Tblisi and I don't know how, or why, or where from. Not important so far, too short of detail and triangulation to categorise and act on.

"Yet here you are. Why are you here?"

A beat of time.

"The original intelligence about Tblisi and Thatcher came from you? You are why I am here?" The question was ignored as if not heard. Sirius allowed that convenient deafness to pass for the time being.

"I am not sure about why you are here, not yet. All I do know for sure is this: my street Arabs have been picking up whispers, questions, over the last few weeks. About the siege, about any connections with Margaret Thatcher.

"I would not have pricked up my ears at such vague intelligence. Except that the siege itself still has meaning for me. My government. Yours. Unfinished business. The events surrounding the siege remain a mystery which need answering.

"For this reason the siege continues to be an international secret. A puzzle that needs completing. That niggles - that and the very lack of any obvious connection with The Iron Lady snags the imagination also."

"Is there any connection? Between Thatcher and the siege?"

"Nothing - or nothing obvious. Nothing you would latch onto. Not exactly. Not enough to be the cause…." He shook his head to clear it, and started again. "She came to Georgia - to Tbilisi - in 1987, as part of a rather brave five day visit to the USSR, as Georgia was a part, at the time. She was the first British Prime Minister to visit Russia for many years, and tackled several difficult issues. Jewish migration, nuclear armament. Her visit was outspoken and contentious.

"Tblisi was her last stop on the tour. She got out of her limousine and greeted people in the street - real people. She went sightseeing, attended a wedding, visited a museum and went to the State Opera, a formal dinner. She made an impact."

"Yes. I understand she was good at that. My brother met her once."

"Yes, I know." he hesitated for a moment Making a decision. "My cousin Edvard, who owned this house before his death ten years ago, was part of the delegation which met her at the museum. Where she privately presented him with a unique piece of history that was important to the Georgian people; and indeed to the peoples of Russia as a whole."

"What was that?"

"Something you may have heard of. The incomparable Black Pearl of the Borgias. Part of the Salagov Diadem."

"I thought it was just a fable?"

"Not at all. Perhaps it is the alliteration that devalues it in the public mind?" Sirius smiled and pushed his breakfast plate away. Peeled an orange with minimum fuss.

"You want to know about it?"

"Not especially. It is just a pearl. I have no interest in personal jewellery and adornment."

"There speaks the disdain of a handsome man with no place for sentiment in his heart. Or romantic feelings. Just like his brother." Sirius waved an orange segment in his direction. "Let me enlighten you."

"If you must. But be brief. I find the topic boring."

"You won't be by the time I have finished," For a moment the cool façade shifted and revealed the deep passion and commitment he normally kept hidden as he gathered his thoughts. " Pearls. Sought after for centuries for their natural beauty, a symbol of riches and wisdom. Black pearls most especially so.

"They bring hope for wounded hearts, healing power, protection against negative energy, it is said. The Black Pearl of The Borgias was first recorded in the fifteenth century, when the Borgia family were at the height of their powers. Though to have been brought from Tahiti or some other exotic point south by one of the great explorers of the era.

"You know of the Borgias, I assume? A Spanish-Italian noble family of huge power and influence. They provided popes and criminals, and were known for murder and mayhem and manipulation. As well as patrons of the arts and a great influence in the Renaissance.

"The Black Pearl came into Borgia hands from some suitor or other dancing attendance on Lucrezia Borgia; not that I would have considered wooing the lady myself, far too much death and destruction was down to her - poisonings and stabbings and young gentlemen floating down the Tiber. But there you go, takes all sorts."

Sherlock Holmes ignored the melodramatic touches.

"What makes the Black Pearl special? Beyond fable and fantasy?"

"You will know that pearls are a natural mutation that grows within the soft tissue of a mollusc, yes? Black pearls are a mutation of the mutation, much rarer, more valuable, more sought after. ….

"Yes, yes. Spare me the schoolboy science. Aragonite and calcite in crystalline form and laid down in concentric layers to make a sphere. Rarer and even more sought after are the odd shapes, known as baroque pearls…."

"And the Black Pearl of The Borgias is a notable baroque. A deep black, perfectly proportioned and symmetrical heart shaped pearl, darker and larger than normal. It is safe to say that there is no other pearl quite like it. Or with an equivalent history."

"Which is?"

"Hard to tell fact from legend over the centuries, but the pearl is reputed to have come as plunder from pirates on the high seas and brought to Venice by a very shifty explorer and conquistador called de Ojeda. And thus to Lucrezia Borgia.

"It stayed within the family for generations as the centrepiece of an ornate pendant, but passed to the Russian Salagov family in a very drunken and heated game of Hazard in the nineteenth century. It then became the droplet centrepiece of a very trendy Russian diadem, surrounded by white and pink pearls and amethysts. It was famous and worn in public once more.

"This is where history gets murky again. The Salagovs lent the diadem to the Czar for display as part of the Russian Diamond Fund; a national collection started by Peter the Great in 1613, lavish Russian jewellery belonging to the state and people. This ended, ironically enough, in 1917 with the Russian Revolution, when the entire collection was seized by the Communists.

"Many jewels were hidden, dispersed, sold in auction around the world, even exchanged for coal. Like many other treasures, The Black Pearl Of The Borgias just vanished, with the Salagov diadem on which it hung.

"Tales vary about it's fate; that it was sold in New York; bartered for food when the Solagovs were on their uppers running from the Revolution; destroyed by the Communists. Yet somehow it resurfaced, here in Tblisi, in 1987."

"Thatcher came to Tblisi in 1987."

"Yeah. Coincidence? I doubt it. From hints and insider gossip, my guess is the Black Pearl fell into British hands in Moscow in highly dubious circumstances around that time. Stolen, or ceded, or pledged. Gained through blackmail, or simple theft, or even exchanged for a spy. It was a time of deep and rapid political and social change in Russia with Gorbachov in place.

"However it was achieved, I suspect the Pearl travelled with Thatcher in the diplomatic bag from Moscow and was quietly handed back to the Sologav family along with the diadem. History rewritten with minimal fuss. Probably for services rendered? Missions accomplished? The family has always had a British bias."

Sirius quirked a grin. "Like the Holmes family, generations of the Sologashvili's and Solagovs have been in government service…."

"Yes, yes, goes without saying…."

"….So the return was kept quiet until time forgot it. But as a centrepiece of the very exhibition the siege ruined, it was the perfect symbol - for those in the know - of the easing of relations between Russia and Georgia, with the UK as peace brokers. It is the only situation that makes sense from known facts."

"What happened to it after the siege?"

"We don't know. I don't know. The family was certainly proud to have it on show. The diadem was safe in it's locked exhibition glass case, and it was there throughout the siege. The fireproof case survived both the siege and explosions afterwards.

"Yet when it was unlocked - the diadem, with it's white and pink pearls and amethysts, was intact. But the Black Pearl centrepiece had gone. It has never resurfaced. It is on Interpol's most wanted list. There is a generous reward on offer." He sighed. "The symbolism of the Black Pearl cannot be underestimated. One aspect of the siege takers was a pro Russian faction demanding return to Russian rule. Georgian people, Georgian artefacts.

"Relations between Georgia and Russia will remain frosty as there is a feeling Russia stole the pearl back There will a shadow over GB influence and all East-West relations until the Black Pearl is found".

"The natural assumption is one of the terrorists stole it and kept quiet. One of the hostages? Even, perhaps, a member of the Agra team? We need to know. But everyone in there died. So - a member of the clear-up team? Suspicions abound, but nothing is known for sure. Yet this treasure of world art and history must be found and come home."

"It's just a pearl. It could have been destroyed in the fire."

"Perhaps. But that does not explain how it disappeared from the locked case. "

"Solagov is the Russian branch of your family. Was the Black Pearl in your hands? And that is why you are determined to hunt it down?"

"You see too much. Say too much."

"But am I right?"

"Not. Exactly. "

"What does that even mean?"

"The family connection is there. But my interest goes beyond that."

"How?"

"Have you ever heard of an organisation called ArtAime?"

"An international quasi-official group set up after World War Two, originally to return art works plundered by the Nazis to their original owners. Broadening to trace and hunt other stolen artwork around the world." He looked hard at Nico Sologashvili.

"Oh. I see. Play on words. Aiming to rescue art. But also aimer, French verb meaning to love, thus loving art. Is that you? Is that your engine, your driving force, Sirius? That fatal character flaw that sees things as more important than people? Culture more important than life? Oh, no wonder you and Mycroft are friends. It all makes sense now."

"Without culture mankind are cavemen. Without aspiration or ambition, without heart. And you overstep your mark, Sherlock Holmes."

"I didn't start this conversation, Sirius. You did. You pushed the envelope."

"What envelope? Why are you really here?"

"Certainly not to find something as useless as a pearl."

Sirius stood. Restrained his anger at Sherlock Holmes's refusal to engage, to see the importance or even the relevance of The Black Pearl Of The Borgias.

But there were other things to do. The other things, the planned things.

"This conversation has not concluded. But we have places to be, people to meet. I suggest we go and do just that."

o0o0o

The day left even Nico Sologashvili breathless.

For he led and he guided, but mostly he stood back and watched Sherlock Holmes work.

The attack the day before may well have been accidental or targeted, but whichever it was, he was the man on the ground; he should have anticipated, challenged, deflected. As it was the young Englishman had been shocked and damaged and thrown off balance by a handful of words in Sinhalese, yet had pushed forward.

There was perhaps more to that than met the eye, but Sherlock Holmes was not yielding to either the blow or the pain of concussion. Was not telling all he knew, yet had obtained more inside information from Hilary Weatherstone in an hour than he had across six years.

He had not known just how headstrong and disliked Julia Tregannon had been. He had not known the weight of guilt Hilary Weatherstone felt.

And when Sherlock Holmes had insisted on seeing the crime scene photographs of the aftermath of the siege - photographs he had never known existed - a blind eye was turned while the Deputy Ambassador spent twenty minutes in the bowels of the archives accessing a large box file. Of papers not entrusted to computer input, even under encryption.

So when Sherlock Holmes photographed the photographs on his telephone, he ignored Hilary Weatherstone's yelp of protest.

"Hey! You should ask for permission to do that."

"If I did you would say 'no' and life would become very difficult for you. As it is you can claim ignorance if anyone asks about this. But they won't, because these are just for my brother and myself."

And that was that.

The two visitors had sat in Hilary Weatherstone's office and waited for his return. An awkward silence settled that seemed not to affect Sherlock Holmes.

Nico Sologashvili observed surreptitiously. The younger man had a mature quality of stillness and concentration about him, and in many ways reminded him of his friend the older brother.

But the younger Holmes was merely an enigma, while his brother was a closed book. Just as contained and unreadable, yet more handsome and attractive, less ascetic. The same lean energy and high intelligence, the same penetrating and sardonic gaze, yet with a different sort of depth to him; the possibility of sensuality in his unconventional physical beauty and sartorial style, with his messy dark curls and shuttered silver eyes.

Sirius was cooperating professionally, but Nico Sologashvili was personally intrigued.

Observed the flattering cut of the Lloyd Hall suit, the Dolce and Gabbano shirt, the sturdy Belstaff coat, as Sherlock Holmes sat motionless with feline poise in the armchair opposite him, one long leg elegantly crossed over the other, hands at ease on his lap, elbows on the chair arms.

"Do I have a smut on my nose, or do you just like what you see?" The mild enquiry jerked him from his reverie.

"No smut," he replied instantly, repressing a grin.

"Quite right. Absolutely not."

The words should have emerged lightly, as a joke. But the neutral tone of the words had an edge to them the Georgian did not miss.

"You resent being considered attractive?"

"Boring." Sherlock Holmes looked up then to meet his eyes. "I do not react well to flirtation and had expected better of you. Please don't tell me this means you had some sort of romantic liaison with my brother?"

"Mycroft? Hardly. More a meeting of minds."

"That is a rarity in itself, Sirius. Consider that a compliment to you." He paused, assessed, and unbent a little. "And thank you for your help."

"Why are you here, Sherlock? What is it about this old incident has engaged you?"

"It was directed to me by the powers that be. Because I have some personal interest in the case. To analyse and resolve that is to answer the mystery of the siege. The devil is always in the detail, so I start with that. The pearl is of no matter to me. But I may solve that along the way, See how it goes."

The Geogian did not defend or argue his interest; now was not the time for that.

"Which are?"

"The reason for the siege itself is not the real issue, however much you may wish it so. The real issue is why that final attempt to break the siege failed when it should have succeeded. And why everyone involved died. The success rate of Agra - Raga - meant breaking the siege should have worked. Also the number of deaths resulting defy statistical odds."

"In English?"

"There is a factor we are still not seeing. A spoke in the wheel. A manipulation. A particular grit in the oyster that has nothing to do with a black pearl. But black deeds. Yes."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"Dunno, yet. But I can smell it."

"You have a personal interest in this, you say? Interest in the only survivor? The leader of Raga; Ro Adams, then?"

"Ro Adams. Mary Morstan."

"Who is Mary Morstan?"

"Good question! Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972 and is buried in Chiswick Cemetery. And yet Mary Morstan appeared as a fully formed adult working as a nurse receptionist in a London doctor's surgery four years ago."

"So?"

"She enchanted a colleague of mine while I was away. And he was foolish enough to propose marriage to her before I returned and could intercede. So Mary Morstan became Mary Watson….."

"Watson? But that's your former flatmate, isn't it? Your colleague in detection? Your best friend?"

Sherlock Holmes shrugged.

"Oh, please! 'Best friend'? Such a juvenile term, don't you think?. No. My main interest is that she is provably dangerous. Lethal. In fact. And I need to be able to asses her risk to myself and others. And then determine any action necessary to neutralise that.

"So the final failed commission of hers in Tblisi may be the key to….more?" Sirius demanded. "You are telling me…that this woman is married to your friend and colleague. Therefore she must be some sort of friend to you, engage some emotional, personal response in you…."

"No."

"….and that this investigation is highly personal. Highly motivated, Deeply engaged. Open to distortion and prejudice."

"Don't be ridiculous. Lady Smallwood, and then my brother, drew this matter to my attention. It needs answering. That is all."

Sirius shook his head at the level of detachment so presented.

"The emotional disassociation of the Holmes family is potentially dangerous, Sherlock. Life limiting. You know that?" Sirius sat forward in his chair, urging something with an instinct he could not define within himself. "Too little humanity in judgement can be as dangerous as too much."

"Oh, shut up, do," was the scathing reply. A moment's pause, and his head snapped up with a manic extravagant grin. Then:

"When we get back to your house, will you lend me the old clothes you wear in your workshop?"

o0o0o

Nico Sologashvili had stood in the guest bedroom and said it was not a good idea. At least twice.

Sherlock Holmes ignored him and wriggled his naked body into the old grey boiler suit that was two sizes too big and smelled fragrantly of linseed oil, wood shavings and French polish.

The Georgian's working outfit when restoring furniture and artworks in the studio workshop next to the grand ballroom, and which used to be a breakfast room.

"Stop being an old woman, Sirius. Your workshop clothes are the perfect disguise."

"No pants? No socks? A bit uncomfortable?"

"Savile Row knickers would be a total giveaway. As would silk and cashmere socks…." Sherlock Holmes transferred the yellowing newspaper from the bottom of a drawer into the soles of the workboots with steel toecaps that were a size too big and sat down to put them on.

Shrugged into the old gardening jacket and pulled the tattered cap onto his head. He had already rubbed kitchen soap into his hair to make it lank and greasy and rubbed dust from the back of the wardrobe into his unshaven face.

"So you are considering the possibility of someone being in your underwear? No, I don't like this, Sherlock. If anything happens to you your brother will disembowel me. At the very least."

"Nothing will happen. I'm just going to ask around a bit, locate some people. Get the gossip. From the market area of yesterday, around the old Embassy. Take the pulse of the people. Tap some memories, perhaps."

"Let me come with you. Safety in numbers."

"You are too well known, too highborn. You would stick out like a sore thumb."

"Oh? And you won't?"

Even as he asked the question he knew it was ridiculous. For he also watched a handsome young Englishman morph into a slovenly Russian labourer before his eyes. Shrink three inches. Curve his body into a different shape. Transform.

" _Ya govoryu na Russkom,"_ came the reply in a low Perm growl. " _Perestan bespokoit_

 _Sya_. _Ya magu pozabotit'sya o seba_." I speak Russian. Stop worrying. I can look after myself.

"I should hope so. But I still don't like it."

"Live with it."

A peasant from Perm slouched to the bedroom door. Opened it and went through. Sherlock Holmes leant back in for a cheeky click-wink.

"Don't wait up."

And he was gone.

o0o0o

But Nico Sologashvili did wait up.

When Sherlock Holmes sidled silently back through the bedroom door sometime after 4am, Sirius was there, sitting in the armchair in the bay window, backlit only by the light from the street outside.

"Back in one piece, then."

"Of course."

"Barely."

The Georgian surged from his chair and across the room in a rush of reaction towards the Sherlock Holmes he saw now, hands raised to take him by the shoulders; But instead stepped back as if repulsed and switched on a sidelight.

They both blinked in the unaccustomed brightness.

"Good Christ, boy! Look at you!"

He was filthier than when he had left. Mud clung to the coat, and his hair was wet - who knew where the hat had gone? Dried blood rimmed the edges of his lips, and traces of some white powder he did not care to think about rimmed one nostril.

Despite himself Sirius felt a spike of fear rise in him.

"And you stink. Cigarettes. Booze. Cheap scent and body fluids. What have you been inhaling? What have you been doing? And where in hell have you been?"

"Clearly the right thing in the right place, from your reaction."

Unperturbed, Sherlock Holmes slipped off the jacket and folded it carefully into a heap on the floor.

"Networking. Scouring dive bars, back streets, basement clubs. Talking to the dregs of society and being one. Learning an awful lot."

He paused and began to unbutton the boiler suit.

"And now I am going to have a shower, grab a couple of hours sleep, then get the lunchtime flight back to London."

"Is that all you are going to tell me?"

"Yes."

He stopped unbuttoning, pushed his hands onto his hips and looked searchingly at Nico Sologashvili.

"Organised crime in Tblisi is very structured. Ruled by the Mafia and two main crime families. Much Russian influence and finance. You know how much?"

"Yes. Of course. I could have told you that."

"So why did you not tell me the internal pressures on the hostage takers in the siege came from warring Georgian crime family factions - thieves in law? Both targeting Russian finance and arms by that move? Criminal intent, layers of power play, political motivation, political connivance. Complex. Starting to make sense, finally. Not really art inspired at all, I am sorry to inform you."

Sirius frowned, stilled "That was all theory, never proven."

"No? Just ask the people on the ground. The people who live near the old embassy. The people who live in the sink streets of Tblisi."

"You did that? Is that where you have been?"

"Yes. And yes."

"And what have you been doing to get that information?"

"Mingling, Nico. Mingling." He stepped out of the work boots and the boiler suit, uncaring of his nakedness, unheeding of the bruises on his ribs that had not been there when he left the house, the grazes across his knuckles.

"And the rest?"

"This? Be your age. Just evidence of a little grass root socialising."

"Was it worth it? Demeaning yourself like that? Slumming? Being humiliated?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I'll just say your beloved black pearl has never been seen on the streets of Tblisi, not even gossiped about. So I suspect it never got out of the building and was indeed destroyed in the fire. Sorry." He hitched a shoulder in a little uncaring shrug. "And now I'm going for a shower."

Nico Sologashvili sat back down. He had waited this long. He would wait ten minutes more.

And when Sherlock Holmes stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in the black silk pyjamas and dressing gown, rubbing his hair dry, his frown showed he had not expected his host to still be there.

"What is it? Why are you still here? I achieved what I wanted - to know Tblisi from the ground up, tap reaction to the siege, even if six years late; what gossip has lingered, the detail that is the devil. I have no result for you yet, but more context. It will help."

"But that s not why you went hunting."

"No idea what you are talking about."

Nico Sologashvili lifted a dark blue folder off the dressing table beside him.

"I have something to show you. I have been doing some digging myself while you were out." He waved the folder, but Sherlock Holmes merely narrowed his eyes, did not take the bait.

"You have not been honest with me, have you? I have asked several times why you are here doing this and you have not answered me. But it is six years since the embassy siege, and after the initial debrief, when the events of that day were closed down under the Official Secrets Acts of two countries and more, no-one has been interested in it until now.

"Until it was confirmed the point leader of the attack team survived and was identified as Ro Adams, aka Mary Morstan, now Mary Watson. So here you are."

He looked at Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes looked back at him, silent and impassive.

"Don't lie to me. Don't tell me this woman is not a friend of yours. Not close to you. Is not married to the only person you have ever admitted being close to you - your ex flatmate, colleague, best friend, ex lover, whatever.

"This woman took the place in Captain Doctor John Watson's life you had filled until you removed yourself voluntarily and without confiding in the man on a two year mission. You let him - and everyone else - think you were dead."

"When you returned you deliberately left her in your place rather than go back to what you were to him. Did you feel destroyed? Unworthy? Inadequate? That you had outgrown him? Only they wouldn't let you step away, would they? And she was instrumental in that. Her. Not him.

"So you not only planned their wedding, you were Watson's best man, and vowed to protect them for ever. Untypically sentimental of you. Even after she shot and almost killed you.

"No! Don't open your mouth to deny that. It's pretty obvious. So it is also pretty obvious she means something to you, despite everything. Well?"

There was a long, blank silence.

"I have never blamed her for shooting me; I understood her motives. I will admit I made a rather rash vow. But an ordinary wedding gift seemed a bit blasé in the circumstances. I meet my obligations That's it."

"Sherlock…."

"No. This Tblisi hit was Mary Morstan's last op, and was for the British Government. Many questions still need answering about it, not least why Lady Smallwood and my brother brought it to my attention. Closure is needed regardless, and also certainty of no future repercussions."

"Why not just ask her?"

"Then she would know I was aware and digging, especially as she knows - unlike her husband - that I read her file. I know her, Sirius. She might do something….rash… to protect herself. Even put her own survival before the safety of her husband and child. Or shoot me again. And I can assure you that she does not miss.

"My investigation must remain secret and independent. Surely you can see that? But cheer up, Nico. At the moment I see nothing to concern me. Except I am. Concerned."

"You think you might just be too close? Too emotionally involved?"

"I am never emotionally involved. I simply have a puzzle to solve and obligations to meet."

"To the government, obviously," Sirius agreed. "But also…to her? Or to him?"

"I do not wish to discuss…"

"Oh, but you must. You must. This is not just about them, is it? This is about you, too."

Sherlock Holmes shrugged again and turned away, but his host caught him by the arm and shook it.

"I know you, Sherlock Holmes, because I know your brother. I have watched you the last forty hours. Watched you be damaged and claw back, deduce and determine, process information like the machine you try to be.

"Did you see yourself when you came in? You have been in the gutter tonight. Drink, drugs, women - or was it men? Any one of those situations could have killed you. Your willingness to abase yourself to gain the win worries me."

"Stop it." Sherlock Holmes's tone was scathing as he pulled his arm free. "You are not my control, and you are overstepping your brief. I know the streets. Better than you, obviously. And you have to put out to find out."

"You take ridiculous risks. Are Watson and his wife worth it? Is she? " Nico Sologashvili watched the younger man, apparently distant and unperturbed, drop the filthy boiler suit into a laundry basket.

"I don't understand it. You are unique and hugely talented. What is your connection to Watson that it drives you to this? From what I can see he is a far lesser man that you. Lower social status, less intelligent…"

"You overstep your mark, Sirius." The voice was cold and at the edge of self control suddenly. "Many people have underestimated John Watson, and they have all regretted that eventually. Even my brother.

"Watson has a unique skill set and sense for survival. Brave, loyal and incomparable; John Watson killed to save my life when I had known him less than a day. He has saved my life innumerable times since. He is the best ever man to have at your back. He says I am his best friend."

"You don't believe him?"

"I don't have friends."

Yes, you do have friends; you know you do."

"You confuse friendship with being tolerated by others when working together for a common good."

"You don't work with Mary Watson. Your connection with this woman and her husband colours and may warp everything you do."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous. You may be Mycroft's younger brother, but you are not him. He is the ace manipulator, the chess grand master. His emotional detachment disorder is perfect for his role and his power. But you are different.

"Even Mycroft describes you as his dragon slayer. You go straight to the heart of things. Of people. You connect, however much you deny it. You have instinct and humanity and you repress sixty per cent of yourself trying to be some impossible high achieving thinking machine."

"And your point is?"

"Be yourself, Sherlock. Not a shadow of your brother. You have a different path, different talents. If you allowed the emotion within you it's space it would make you even more efficient. Stronger. Cleverer. Kinder."

Sherlock Holmes made an angry noise in the back of his throat. Rolled his eyes.

"Why would I want to be kind?"

"Because it is part of who you are."

"No. It is not. I am nothing to do with you. Why are you doing this? Because my brother dare not?"

Nico Sologashvili sighed. He could see the man in front of him becoming disturbed. He had to do this before he was blocked out…..

"OK, then. Mycroft fears you would not accept additional information about Mary Watson from him. That you would think he was inventing danger to protect you. To alienate you from her. And you would over react in her favour rather than exercise true objectivity."

No reply, no response. So he continued.

"You need to know about the woman you call Mary Watson. Because I don't think you know enough. I have been collating information on her this evening. Information you won't like but need to know."

"I do know."

"Do you? Really? Do you know how dangerous she truly is? And how she may think you are dangerous too? To her specifically? She has already shot you and nearly killed you, for God's sake. So why do you trust her? Against all the evidence?"

"I told you. I know why she shot me. Her process was logical. She has apologised and gives every appearance of being sincere. For what that's worth. And…." he hesitated. "If she is as dangerous as you think….as I may well also think…and Mycroft….then I need to stay close to her - as a friend - for the sake of her husband and child. Perhaps even for Mary herself. So I must remain close, not miss a trick. There may be factors here that none of us know about. I'm not sure. Not yet. Give her the benefit of the doubt, don't you think? Or enough rope to hang herself?"

Sirius resisted showing his satisfaction at having finally prised such hesitant honesty from Sherlock Holmes. But the curved shoulders, the averted eyes, spoke for themselves.

And with sadness and a little pity he realised the younger man was more than aware of the danger, the nuance, and the possibility of betrayal that lay in the only practical course of action available to him.

A little lightness before the killer punch? Yes? He needed to deliberately lift the mood. So he looked up and grinned.

"You are not Sherlock Holmes at all, my friend. You are a Georgian hero and icon; the Knight In The Panther Skin. Have you ever heard of him?"

"No."

He watched Sherlock Holmes pass one large lean hand slowly across his face in something between exhaustion and despair. Affected not to notice.

"He is the hero of our greatest literary work by our greatest poet, Shota Rustaveli. A long romantic poem of the Georgian Golden Age. About two heroes - devoted friends - bound by codes of honour, idealism, self sacrifice, equality between the sexes, and their quest to find and save the great love of one of them.

"A beautiful woman who is queen and conqueror. One quatrain about her describes her as _'she who strikes terror from the East to the West, wherever she fights: those who are traitors she destroys, those who are loyal she delights.' "_ He risked a glance.

"Is that your Mary?"

"She is not my Mary."

"Nevertheless, you are certainly Tariel, the Knight In The Panther Skin. Wild, passionate, intelligent. And Watson the devoted unto death friend Avtandil. And so history and literature are reflected. Loyalty, dispassionate love, courage, nobility."

"I am sure this delightful literary history must be fascinating. But you are clearly trying to soften me for a blow to come. So let's cut to the chase, shall we?"

Sherlock Holmes sat down on the edge of the bed and looked the Georgian in the eye. Nico Sologashvili flipped open the file in his hand. Paperwork, photocopies. A cascade of photographs of several women. Yet despite variations in hair colour, styling, clothes, cosmetics, all were clearly photographs of Mary Watson.

The consulting detective picked up the file and studied the photographs individually and in silence.

"Yes," he said finally. One word containing a world of acceptance and disillusionment.

"This file is the result of intelligence from several countries and sources," The cold professional voice now was pure Sirius." But remains nothing like complete. You understand?"

"Just get on with it."

"As you say, the woman you first knew as Mary Morstan was the woman who thieved the identity of a dead child from Chiswick. This is just the latest of her identities. She has made it something of a speciality. Before that she was, in no particular order, Carol Hastings, Ro Adams, Inge Sternborg, Lisa Ehmentral, Barbara Clarke, Gabrielle Ashdown, Margarita Schenck, Suzette Philippe. And probably more."

"A variety of nationalities. Who is she really?"

"Hard to say. The best guess, due to identical results and intel from three international law enforcement agencies, is that she may be Mary Johnson, who appeared as an agency nurse with the BaseAid charity in what is now known as South Sudan, working in a rural hospital mainly for the Nuer people.

"Seems that in the civil war - still raging - the local militia taught all the hospital staff to shoot - for self defence and to protect the hospital. Mary Johnson proved rather good at it. Hooked up with Swedish and German mercenaries on the ground who taught her their own skills. And then, after a couple of civil war stand offs at the hospital, Mary Johnson just disappeared. Not dead. Just - gone."

"Recruited? Hustled?"

"Whichever. Who can say? Anyway, three months later Margarita Schenck appeared with a band of mercenaries in Chad. Unusual for a woman to make a living toting a gun, but not unknown: female soldiers have been growing in acceptance and number for some years. And of course there were the Amazons as an example." He tried half a joke and a smile,

"So why pick up on Mary especially?"

"Gamekeeper turned poacher is rare. Usually the other way round. And a nurse assassin? Not many of them around. The situation she was originally in, she may have had no choice about taking lives to save lives, the ultimate decision for a nurse, you might say. In the extreme circumstance of a poverty stricken semi desert warring part of the world.

"But then things escalated, as they tend to. She was good with a gun, cool under pressure, objective. Found herself in demand, and then could not turn round and go back - or perhaps nothing to go back to? Money, pressure, power, excitement. Who knows? The illegality of what she was doing was it's own trap, of course. And so she became an assassin for hire."

"I do know that."

"Not enough. You don't know that enough. If Mary Morstan is indeed Mary Johnson, then she is what we in the business call a ghost. A bloodless killer, a loner, in demand around the world. One of the best.

"No one suspects a diminutive blonde nurse will be a killer. Especially one who can encompass different identities, appearances, languages, roles. Because she did not come through any standard military system her skills are broader, less predictable. As a gun for hire that versatility and unpredictability makes her the perfect black op. And she has passed like a ghost through that world for years now. With some very illustrious clients and connections."

"Charles Augustus Magnussen certainly. The Golden Triangle? Cosa Nostra? The Dubois Brothers? The Siderno Group? The Hillbillies? Dogmush? Moriarty?"

"Any. All. Who knows? She is a ghost, Sherlock. So she strikes, then she is gone. She is successful. But no two people can describe her, tell you who and what she is. It was only latterly she became part of Agra; yet still maintained a remarkable solo strike rate. Until Tblisi when it all went wrong.

"When she lost her team,she lost the mission. Had to lie low after such a high profile failure. Or just lost her nerve? Stepped away and became someone else, regardless. Became Mary Morstan. Let basic human biology in. The need for security. A husband, a child, a settled life."

The consulting detective picked up the file and went through the photographs and the paperwork again, deep in thought.

"None of this was on her Agra memory stick. If it had been I would have known, been cautious; more aware."

"Naturally. But with her professional intelligence would not a condensed version of reality be an excellent sop or bargaining tool, should she ever need it? Did you never think she was too quick to present her history to her husband, and therefore to you?"

"I was a little….distracted at the time. Rather limited. Taking things at face value."

He remembered how ill he had been; the whispered threat of ' we don't tell John' in his ear. The escape from hospital, the morphine, the subterfuge in Lauriston Gardens. Mary's trophy shot, of bending and ripping stitches…the agony of climbing the stairs to 221B and the explosive agony of the collapse…more surgery, a long and painful convalesence…..

"The perfect time for her to feint left with an edited version of the truth, then."

"Yes. If she really is who you say."

"You see? Emotion is twisting your judgement. You don't want to believe it. You are blocking out your emotional response rather than allowing for it, factoring it in."

"Stop it. I don't need your amateur psychology."

He stood abruptly and turned away, crossed to the window and looked out. Across the ravine and the river valley of Tblisi towards the rest of the world.

Nico Sologashvili resisted stepping out of his professional persona of Sirius to give the boy a word, a touch of support. _Breathe. Recalibrate. Deliver._

"There is a way to put your mind at rest. If you are up to doing what is needed."

"So tell me." The three words were flat, without energy or hope.

" One important thing we do know about Mary Johnson, because it was noted in hospital records. She went into the desert with two German mercenaries and rescued six children kidnapped for ransom by another tribe. As a mark of respect, a badge of honour if you will, the three rescuers were granted a celebratory party when they returned. A ritually slaughtered goat. Home made liquor. And a tattoo."

"A what?"

"A mark of honour for warriors. Not a needle and ink; the old tribal way - a hot flint and ash. A raised grey mark, about an inch long, at the top of the ribs. Or, in Mary's case, beneath the left breast."

There was a snort, a cynical laugh of protest and disbelief.

"And how do you expect me to check that out, Sirius?"

He shrugged, pulled a face.

"You are a man. She is a woman who knows and clearly admires you. Use your imagination. Like I said, Sherlock. Emotion."

There was a brief and telling silence.

"You don't know what you are asking of me."

"Yes I do. To prove the existence of a ghost."

"There is no such thing as ghosts. Except the ones we make for ourselves...the shadows that define our every sunny day."

He turned back to face his host.

"I must get back to London."

o0o0o

The cold wind that met him as he surged out onto the street from the hospital cooled his temper. And he stuttered to a halt on the anonymous London pavement, heedless of the crowds of people surging around and past him.

 _Oscillating on the pavement. Must stop doing that. Not start doing that. Too easy, far too easy, to walk out of a scene._

And yet…and yet….he had not been expecting her to throw the scissors at him. And he did not know why she had. That worried him. It was unlike her.

 _Perhaps that is because she knew he was bringing a new awareness to the party? A new level of knowledge about her, courtesy of Sirius? That already knowing she was a sniper and a ruthless assassin was only the half of it?_

 _So had she seen this new knowledge behind his eyes, in the set of his shoulders? She had always been aware of his sensitivity and the detachment of his process. Was she punishing him for that? For what else had struck a chord in her and put her so dramatically on the offensive?_

 _He had said she was a woman of secrets. That he had underestimated her, and the depths of her that had stayed secret. That he suspected more. That he had underestimated. Underestimated._

 _The lurch behind her eyes had told him that he was right; that his shot in the dark had struck it's target. That the calmly spoken words of Nico Sologashvili had been precise. That the woman in front of him was a ghost. The ghost. The ghost in the machine._

 _Had there been some special relevance to her about the failure of the Tblisi Siege? More than he knew or could yet see? That she had more of herself invested in the failure than the success?_

 _That she had betrayed MI6? England? The captives and Agra itself? Was that possibility why she and they had become Raga for that specific mission? To steer events the way they went? Was there more to it all than even he had feared?_

He stood on the pavement and waited until his breathing and his mind calmed. That all the shock and the cynicism within him settled and quietened and receded. Until sanity returned. Until the heat within his mind cooled and dispassion reasserted itself.

He had to go back, he realised.

He had to find out if Mary Watson was Mary Johnson, the ghost Sirius thought she was. And to do that he needed to find out about the tattoo. If she had a stippled tattoo beneath her left breast; a tattoo that looked like a grey scar, but was a primitive raised tattoo made with wood ash and sharp stone.

He hoped she didn't. But he still had to know. Had to find out for himself.

The words of Nico Sologashvili had haunted him when they were spoken, and still haunted him twenty four hours later. And seeing Mary breastfeeding the baby had brought the identification process freshly and sharply to mind.

He had looked at her so intently, despite his natural delicacy about such matters. Now he wished he had responded better a few moments ago, had seemed kinder, more worldly wise, had taken interest. For then he might have seen what he needed to see as if accidentally. While she was relaxed, concentrating on the baby, mind and instincts elsewhere

Now he had to go back and see properly. See for himself. However much it disturbed her nerves. Or her maternal modesty.

Back into the hospital, back to the right floor, the right corridor, the private single room.

She was still sitting up in bed, the swaddled baby to her breast again as if he had never interrupted her. And she looked up now, as he interrupted her again.

"I thought you had gone," she said icily, this time making no attempt to lift the child away from her breast.

"I thought I had gone," he agreed, striding into the room, crossing to the bed, standing and looming over the mother and child. He has brought the coldness of the street into the side ward with him, and it echoed in the coldness of his eyes.

"What is it?"

Her question was spoken slowly and with weight. As if she saw more in his face and his body language this time, and with something like a particular fear only the two of them understood.

"What is it?" she repeated when he did not answer immediately.

So he smiled then, and held her eyes with his own. Disarming and oddly humble.

"My apologies, Mary. I truly am the most obnoxious and bad mannered man you have ever met." His hands fluttered in a typical uncoordinated, distracting manner as he spoke. "Too tired, too much travelling, too preoccupied, spinning too many plates…..I came here to see your little one. Just as you asked me to. Only I sort of forgot her a few minutes ago…..sorry."

He was close now. In touching distance. One slim hand came out to stroke the baby's head with such gentleness she felt a lump rise in her throat, and she looked down and away to mask her rush of emotion. Hormones, she told herself. Just hormones…..

"She is quite beautiful, Mary. Your hair and prettiness. John's eyes. You are such a clever girl…."

His murmur was so low she could barely hear him as he reached in closer. Brought up the other hand to almost caress the baby's shoulder.

He would have no better chance to check. He knew that. The baby's head was turned into her left breast which was curving a little outside the otherwise concealing garment. His hand went to the baby, and she was not scared by his proximity. Not yet, not quite registering his invasion of her personal space.

So he stroked the infant, which lay quiet and unworried, and charmed it's mother with his rarely presented gentlest smile. He smelt warm milk, talcum powder, the particular scents of both Mary and her child.

They were smiling at each other now, the earlier tension set aside, faces unbearably close, her eyes transfixed by his - strong and silver, yet so warm now, the sectoral heterochromia in the right eye clearly visible from so close - which put her too close to see his left hand curve away from her baby's head, dip down and gently slip inside the warm unlaced front of her nightgown.

Cup her heavy smooth lactating breast in his hand as if caressing it….depending upon her reactions being slowed by childbirth and trust and maternal instinct.

Two priceless seconds before she gathered her wits and wrenched away from him. But not before his fingers had fumbled, and found, a hard irregular knot beneath the heaviness; of something that was not a nipple.

They both sucked in hard breaths. Looked into each others eyes with the same shock and disillusion.

"You,,,,you total shit," she breathed into his mouth. So shocked her words came out in a gasp that sounded like intimacy.

"That's why you love me," he breathed back at her. Flashed his best demonic smile. Determined to keep her off balance as he moved his fingers over the skin beneath her breast; to confirm what he had not wanted to find, or feel, or believe.

"Oh! Oh, you know…." the words whispered out; something like confession.

"I know everything," he said. It sounded like reassurance, not threat.

The hand finally stilled beneath her breast, the other reaching out, shaping her face, their eyes and lips close together, the baby still and silent between them.

Seconds suspended in time. Unexpected intimacy.

Her mouth opened in horror, but she had no weapon - the scissors were still where he had left them - and with the child in her arms, she had no way of moving from him or reacting.

"That's why you love me," he repeated, light and low. As if the seeking hand had been a joke by a naughty boy pushing the boundaries. An act of cheekiness rather than revelation. And then he put his lips on hers - warm and pliant - to further distract her attention and disarm her anger. To make her think the probing fingers had been at best accidental, not intentional. Not intentional in that way.

He saw something shift uncertainly in her eyes. _That worked!_ Smiled into them with all the sincerity and vulnerability he could muster.

 _This is going quite well. She can't decide why I touched, why I kissed, what my hand found. Whether it was even seeking. Distracted, deflected…OH!_

"What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

A strong, harsh angry voice. Far too quiet and controlled.

Both heads turned to look at the man in the doorway.

John Watson, military stance strong and unyielding, fists clenched by his sides, colour drained from his face.

"What the fuck do you think you are DOING?"

A shout now. Three angry strides. A hand in Sherlock Holmes's hair, dragging him backwards and away.

"Get your hands off my wife!"

 _Ohnonono. This is not good!_

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's Notes:**

Golden lions of Georgia: Hats off to design research at Hartswood Films! The pair of golden lions (shown in the TV siege scenes) are supporters of the Georgian coat of arms and feature in much national art and literature. Georgia has many lion artefacts created over many centuries. GB also has lion supporters on her coat of arms, and also has lions important in heraldry, legend and folkore. Another similarity between the two countries.

Margaret Thatcher did indeed visit Tblisi on April 1st 1987. In her speech at a state dinner she commended the Georgian people, their culture and their long established ties with Great Britain. She died in 2013 at the age of 87, after being England's first female Prime Minister between 1979-1990, the longest holder of the role for a century. She would have been still alive at the time of the T6T Tblisi siege. But had withdrawn from public life and reputedly suffering from dementia.

Lucrezia Borga (1480 -1519) Perhaps the most famous Borgia of all; daughter of a Pope, a Governor in her own right, Highly intelligent, educated, beautiful, married several times as political power play, seemingly as ruthless as her relations. Considered a major blackmailer and poisoner. Three times married, reputed to have had many affairs, including incest, she died of puerperal sickness after the birth of her tenth child at the age of 39.

Alonso de Ojeda (1466 - 1515) Spanish explorer and conquistador who named Venezuela. Close to the Court of Inquisition. Sailed with Columbus and famous for courageous victories in battle…. and stealing gold and pearls.

Hazard: a complex dice game probably from C13th Arabia, mentioned in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_. Once hugely popular, a much simplified version evolved into the US craps game.

Russian Diamond Fund: This really exists and is well documented, a unique collection with a mysterious recent history. See the clip Diamonds And Dusty Pages USGS on YouTube

Various international organisations (ArtAime is fictional) exist to return and restore lost or stolen art works. See, for example, Monuments Men Foundation and the Art Loss Register.

Thieves-in-law: A title of status and respect within Eastern European circles of organised crime. The gangs Sherlock later names are real.

Emotional Detachment Disorder: An incapacity to relate emotionally to friends or family.

The Knight In The Panther's Skin by Georgia's national poet Shota Rustaveli consists of 1600 Rustavalian Quatrains and was written in the C12th. Until quite recently every Georgian bride received a copy as a marriage gift. It is an epic allegory about love and friendship and is a wonderful read. It came to world attention in translation during the C19th, with the first English translation by Marjory Wardrop in 1912, and a modern version by Lynn Coffin.


	6. Chapter 6

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 6

 _Don't put the blame on me. I'm only human, I make mistakes. Don't put the blame on me._

 _( Human: Rory Graham/Jamie Hartman)_

"What the fuck do you think you're DOING?"

A strong hand fisted in his hair and hauled him fiercely backwards. A momentary connection flashed between his eyes and hers in the second before he was wrenched away.

As if from a distance he heard her voice saying her husband's name. Not pleading or relieved at his intervention, but sharp, authoritative. Mary Morstan, not Mary Watson. Not that her husband gave any indication of having even heard her.

John Watson was backing rapidly - angrily - out of the room dragging Sherlock Holmes behind him. His compact body had a deceptive core strength to it, and he was manhandling the taller younger man with angry ease, one hand impacted into the dark curls, the other grappling the coat collar.

Back, back, backwards…doorway found by impact, bumping the consulting detective heedlessly off the architrave; a pause to assess if there were people in the grey corridor who would see the violence and intervene; then onwards, out backwards and diagonally across, steering hard, regardless of the man under his hands scrabbling to walk and stay upright while being painfully twisted down and pulled backwards.

A door opened, and he was slammed into a small dark space as the door shut, the fluorescent light flickering brightly on, and then there was a new silence, private and intense The overpowering smell of disinfectant and chemicals in that housekeeping store with it's mops and buckets, floor polishing machines, shelves piled with cleaning materials - the harsh hurtful light, the claustrophobic space, the angry electricity of John Watson - made Sherlock Holmes cringe backwards.

The hand in his collar opened, punched his shoulder to turn him and pushed him hard into the shelving. The other hand remained in his hair, twisting and pulling back. Controlling.

"You were groping my wife!"

Hot sapphire blue eyes, far too close to cool grey ones. There were times when John Watson was taller, stronger, harder, than anyone would ever imagine. This was one of them, Sherlock Holmes thought. And realised he didn't have a clue about what to do now. Except not tell the truth.

 _I was trying to identify your wife, John. Do you want to hear that? I suspect not._

 _Hoping - making sure, because I had to. Because I thought/hoped/prayed she wasn't that reality, wasn't as lethal as I had been told. Hoping she was just Mary Morstan, everyday assassin. Not Mary Johnson, ghost agent and black op supreme._

 _And there was only one way to be sure of her identity. And I could hardly ask you to do that for me, now could I?._

 _Because you love her, dammit. So would you tell me the truth, even if I could ask you this truly intimate question? Would you - could you - tell me? Even for your own sake and survival?_

" _Check under her breast for me, John. Cop a feel for me, have a look…."_

 _Not sure you would. Doubt it. Not fair to ask you. Love makes people blind. Fond and foolish. Why I never indulge._

 _And I really can't tell you what I was doing and why, can I? Because I am compromised now, just as much as you. And if I do tell you now….well, you will never believe me, whichever way you look at it. What is worse? What looks like me indulging in inappropriate sexual contact - or finding your wife is not only someone other than you think she is, but even more lethal that you thought she was?_

 _You will think I am lying to save my own skin whatever you choose to believe, whichever way you look at it. Me, my usual awful self. Bad mouthing your bride, or fumbling with your bride, the mother of your child, just to save my own skin. As if my own skin was worth…. As if you didn't know me. Not at all. Oh, and which thought is worse?_

 _Oh, John. I so much wanted Sirius to be wrong, be exaggerating. Wanted the paperwork to be wrong, all about someone else. Wanted this to be manageable. Do-able._

 _But I had to be certain. D'you see? Had to finally be sure who she was._

 _To know how great the threat will be, when it comes. And it will come, John. It is coming. It is inevitable, after the life she has led. I can feel it._

 _Dangerous for her. For us. The baby. Need to get some idea of how she will handle this. Mother or murderer. Which instinct will come first? Motherhood or murder, or both?_

"No…." Haughty. Dismissive. Perhaps not the best…..

"Yes! And you kissed her. On the lips."

The anger was there. Simmering and about to boil over, Jealousy. Possessiveness. Protectiveness. Fear.

 _And all my fault._

"No. I….I "

 _Stammering. Not good._

You told her she loved you. "

"No. I..I…Yes. No. You've got it all wrong."

 _Stuttering now. Just think. Think!_

"Bloody hell, Sherlock! I saw you!" The grasp on his hair tightened in despairing angry reflex. One hand clenched past the coat and jacket, twisted into the grey shirt. John Watson was almost panting with suppressed fury.

"All the years I've known you, Sherlock. All these bloody years. And now what am I supposed to think? It's the one thing, the one real thing, the most private thing, of so many real things I've never known about you…..what you do for sex.

" What….turns you on. If anything does. Unless it is other men's wives?"

"Don't be ridiculous. There's nothing to know. You do know that."

Despite the guilt flooding his system, a slow ripple of fear at seeing John Watson like this and on the edge of self control, the reply came out the only way it knew how; cool and disdainful. Pain and truth, wrapped up tight behind disdain.

"Nothing 'turns me on' as you so crudely put it. Nothing for you to know. You are over reacting. Get over it."

"No. No, Sherlock. You don't put me off as easily as that. You are still a human being, however much you deny it. Even you have…needs. So. You and women? I've never known, not really. Or if you are even attracted to women. Perhaps you are attracted to men? Surely you could be nothing as simple as asexual? "

Started, he found he could not stop. Voicing the questions forbidden over the years yet ever present in his mind. He raised a hand to stop the younger man interrupting.

"But there was Irene Adler. And Janine. Something there, wasn't there? And you and Mary clearly share….some sort of connection. Other than murder, I mean."

"No. Think, John. Irene and Janine are a type. Tall, dark, beautiful. Reflections of me. Mary is none of those things. But she is a killer."

"So are you."

"But so are you, John. So what does that make all three of us?"

There was a shocked intake of breath.

"I will smack you in a minute…..so bloody hard…" He struggled for calm. "You had your hand on her breast. Inside her nightgown. And you kissed her. So explain yourself. Go on!"

Sherlock Holmes sagged back into the shelving. His brain refused to come up with an excuse. To even work. Produce something glib and plausible. Something John Watson could accept, would believe, even in this heightened and angry state.

"Come on! you're supposed to be the bloody genius here! Out with it!"

The fist opened, released the shirt. Reformed, drew back almost as if despite itself, and was close to delivering a punch that would destroy everything.

Destroy friendship. Camaraderie. Knowledge. Closeness. Safety. Destroy heart and home. And for that moment Sherlock Holmes felt panic stricken and powerless. And his brain crashed out.

Sea storm eyes blinked. Blinked again. It was as if both Holmes and Watson were holding their breath in concert. Their friendship, their connection, their secrets, together hanging on by a thread. Fingers convulsed, dug into flesh. Angry yet grounding.

 _Quick! Think! What will work_? _What haven't I tried? What will John not see through? unable to do anything but believe? What can I….. Oh. Oh, yes. Always trying to get me to emote. Be vulnerable. Let him in. OK, think about that, then._

 _Not sure I can do that. But. Not sure I can't. Or have any alternative…so try it, then? Try. It. How much courage is needed? How much self abasement? How much shame and humiliation? When the question really is - is there no other avenue left?_

And he remembered the echo of Nico Sologashvili's words, just yesterday: 'If you allowed the emotion within you it's space it would make you even more efficient. Stronger. Cleverer.'

 _OK, Sirius. Anyone would think you were psychic. I don't believe it. Not any of it. But I have no alternative left. It won't work, but. We'll give it a try…._

"John….please _….."_

The words wavered from a dry mouth. Body sagged. Knees buckled and John Watson was suddenly holding him up by the hair.

"Sorry." The voice was so low as to be almost inaudible. "I'm so sorry. Always. Too proud to admit…..what I should admit…."

"Sherlock?"

The anger was now laced with a thread of doubt, of worry.

He had seen Sherlock Holmes act and pretend and assume disguises. But he had never seen him like this. John Watson felt a stab of fear but strove for calm within himself and tried to observe and not just see, as Sherlock Holmes had so often told him to do.

For this was not the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes ever said, and John Watson knew that. Yet the hand clamped into the dark curls loosened, slowly released the full body weight as it slumped downwards. The threatening fist opened and lodged under an armpit, easing the taller man onto the floor.

"I'm not well, John." The voice slurred on, quiet and low, head bowed, eyes downcast "Concussed. Mugged two days ago. Mission for Mycroft…..not slept since… bit dizzy…."

He folded down, deeper. Watson went down with him, not breaking his hold, crouching now, peering in to find truth.. Both of them breathing too hard, faces too close.

"What? No. Don't believe you. It's a trick, Sherlock. Another bloody trick!"

"Look at me, John." the voice rose to something close to hysteria; just for that final word - his name. "See? Bruise on my face. Look at me, John. Split lip. Chipped knuckles…..dizzy…."

He was laying it on. But not, he realised with a jolt of something like fear, not that much.

"I don't believe you."

But the voice was slower, less angry, slightly hesitant now

"Ask Mycroft if you don't believe me. Two days in a dingy corner of Eastern Europe, gathering intelligence. Mugged by a common thief in a street market. He stole my bag. Kicked me in the head. I went down like a sack of potatoes. Caught unawares. Been having giddy spells since…..but don't tell him that. He'll try to look after me. Hold it against me. I'll never live it down.".

He sucked in a breath at the attempt at humour that held more than a germ of truth, wobbled a little even as he sat, slumping sideways, limp and crosslegged.

"Mary texted, asked me to visit; so I did, soon as I was back. She wanted me to hold the baby…as if I would. Never been near a baby in my life, But I went forward to touch it; she wanted me to. Pat it, stroke it - something. What are you supposed to do to newborn babies? I dunno.

"Bent down, went giddy. Vision blurry, thought I was going to pass out. Put my hand out to not fall, crush the baby. That must have been when -where - my hand landed. Didn't mean…." He blinked. Twice.

"Don't know how my mouth….I don't kiss people …don't touch. Christ, John, you know that! Dunno what I said. Not myself, John. Still not…."

The words ran out.

John Watson looked into Sherlock Holmes' eyes. Something was struggling in there. And he was very pale, uncoordinated, trembling.

 _This can't be acting. Can it? But I've seen him cry, produce real tears, to get truth out of witnesses. Seen him cry then snap straight back to his cold arrogant self in the blink of an eye._

 _But he'd not do that to me! Surely to God not to me?_

John Watson exhaled. Stood up. Looked down at his friend and pointed a finger.

"Stay there. Do not move."

And he was gone. Alone in the cupboard, the consulting detective simply bowed his head. Exhausted. Humiliated. Flayed open. Ashamed of his appearance of vulnerability. Spent.

Unaware of the passage of time, it seemed hours before John Watson returned. Closed the door behind him and stood silently. Looking down, just looking.

At the thing at his feet that was Sherlock Holmes, collapsed beneath the skirts of the Belstaff, the dark coat draped around him like wings folded. Long limbs still, the detective seemed shrunken, absent. Like a dead crow, Watson thought fancifully.

Finally the dead thing looked up and spoke.

"I'm so sorry…"

"Why?" the words were hard and unforgiving. "You blacked out. Rather than crush the baby you put your hands out and onto Mary - wherever they landed. She couldn't help you because she was cradling the bsby with both hands.

"Your face bounced off hers because she couldn't move. She didn't hear what you mumbled. She was worrying, protecting the little one. And now she is worrying about what has happened to you." He clicked his tongue, shook his head.

"She supports your story, Sherlock."

The verification had nothing but harshness in it. Both heard that judgment in John Watson's voice.

"Really? I…..I didn't….oh."

There was a long silence. John Watson hunkered down, grasped his friend's jaw in a hard grip and forced Sherlock Holmes to look up and meet his eyes.

"I don't know what you are up to, the two of you. But there's something, isn't there? I don't know if she has told me the truth. I don't know why she is protecting you. But I am going to believe her because she is my wife. Are you listening to me?"

"That is….good. Very good of you, John." The face was blank, the voice a whisper. With the soft distant politeness of a stranger.

"Don't push it, Sherlock. You are walking very close to the edge."

He released the jaw with a dismissive flick of the hand that hurt, as it was meant to.

"See a doctor."

"You're my doctor."

"Not now, I'm not."

And he stood erect again. Shook his head. Thought better of saying what was really in his mind. And was gone without another word.

Sherlock Holmes remained on the shiny blue vinyl tiles of the cupboard floor for some time. Trying to understand why Mary Watson had protected him. Trying to find enough of himself to get to his feet and walk away.

o0o0o

The small rectangular and claustrophobic underground office in the nuclear bunker network below Whitehall that Mycroft Holmes affected to use when he needed to concentrate had been invaded.

Security was always sanguine about the perpetrator. Used to it. But this time Sherlock Holmes had erupted into the room with his scarf untied, his coat unbuttoned, and a coating of grey dust over his mess of disarrayed hair.

Trying not to reveal his disquiet at the intervention of a brother that was far from his normal self, Mycroft Holmes pushed his chair elegantly backwards. An extra foot of space between himself and his brother, even when said brother was still on the other side of the desk, seemed prudent.

"I am not going to demean either of us by asking what you are doing here in such high dudgeon," greeting and quiet comment in one.

"High dudgeon? Me? Because I was sent on a wild goose chase to Tblisi so Nico Sologashvili could tell me what you did not dare?"

There was some anger there. But not to level seven yet. About a four. Still capable of listening. And actually something else had distressed the child, while he, as usual, was the deflection.

"Oh, come now. You exaggerate."

"Do I? Really?"

"You are always so suspicious…."

"With just cause. Voice of experience and all that. "

"Which cuts both ways, of course."

Not for the first time, brother glared at brother. Neither wanting to yield.

Mycroft Holmes attempted to observe his brother with a dispassionate eye, but this was not always possible. It was not possible that day. And it irked him to realise that.

Across the desk Sherlock stood too erect, too still, too poised. Hands clasped behind his back, chin high, the mobile mouth a thin line. But his usual elegance was ragged today, his elder brother could see. And something racing away with him internally that only he could see. But how to define that thing? Mental disarray, was it? Disaffection, even despair? And why?

"What's happened, brother mine? You look as if something had rocked your foundations. And we can't have that."

"No."

 _Definitely not. Another revelation about Mary, another revelation only I know as yet. Another brick in the wall between me and John. Another conversation I cannot have…._

"No, what? Oh, come. This is like trying to converse with a spotty teenager, and you were never that. Tell me why you are here at least."

The younger brother whirled away, hands in coat pockets, and folded elegantly down into the armchair opposite the desk.

 _And so we begin. Just the bullet points…._

"There is something wrong with all this. I can smell it. Something is off. And not just the lack of real knowledge of the detail of this siege. Despite the time that has passed, the nations involved."

"I do so agree. It irks. That's why we presented the matter to our dragon slayer. " Mycroft's nod and effort of a smile were as calculated as they were pointed. "So think aloud in my direction."

Sherlock Holmes exhaled, brought his eyes down from the ceiling to meet the pale forensic and unblinking eyes of the British Government.

"Irks? Is that the best you can say?" He shook his head. And began. "Establishing the new British Embassy in Tblisi was an exceptional circumstance that had to be done quickly. But by any measure the premises adopted were inadequate. Yet there had been no hint of trouble before the siege happened. Indeed, the British presence was welcomed back. So why would anyone expect a flashpoint apparently brought on by something as innocuous as an art and cultural exhibition?

"However, undercurrents of national identity, the counterpoint of Russian versus Western influence and power, independence, colonial pressure, a jockeying for position - all could come together and bring friction to flashpoint.

"The lack of common focus for the terrorists - and why they did it - does not make sense. The length of the siege does not make sense. The perfection of the hotel as a defensible position impervious to attack does, however, make sense. And explains how the siege held, if not why.

"Also the intractability and lack of diplomacy of our lady ambassador does not make sense. Especially as neither she nor anyone else survived the experience to tell the tale and explain it all to me.

"I shall attempt to find the answers that have eluded our Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with or without the added input of MI5 and 6. Solving this is more than just filling in the blanks. There is something very wrong at the heart of this. And you are aware of that, aren't you?

"You and Elizabeth both know. You both alerted me, pointed me in the direction.. But you did not tell me the rest. Why did you not tell me the rest?"

Mycroft Holmes looked at his brother for a long moment and decided to confess.

"This matter has long demanded explanation and closure. But as these things sometimes do, with no information or leads everything went quiet - dead, in fact - until now, when a whisper of interest and question has surfaced. So we look at the case afresh. When there is nothing fresh to see."

Mycroft Holmes picked up the paperknife from his desk. Looked down at it and uncharacteristically fiddled with it and frowned at himself. Put it back down. Knowing his brother was watching and analysing every move he made.

"I do not know what it is that is wrong about it. Felt wrong then, and still feels wrong now," he admitted. "So I needed your objective assessment as an outsider. I knew Sirius would show you the reality, give you all the colour and background you would need. And yet I gather you got more information from Hilary Weatherstone that I would ever have expected."

"He stopped being delicate," Sherlock explained. "And loyal. Realised the usual diplomatic dignified silence is all very well for a time, but eventually cracks in the edifice are essential to let the light in and show the truth."

"The same could be said of you."

"Very ironic." He paused. Tread on unstable ground to say what needed to be confirmed. "You think Mary Morstan could have been part of a conspiracy."

"As the only survivor of the siege, that is a logical theory, yes." Mycroft's nod was brief

"And you wanted me to face and assess that theory because I know her."

"Know her better than anyone, I would say. Better than her husband, certainly."

The consulting detective looked up and absorbed that, chose not to remark upon it. Any answer he made could be too revealing to someone with Mycroft's acuity. And he did not want to have that conversation, to reveal her trust in him or his in her - their mutual trust in the only things that mattered - professionalism, objectivity. But not emotions, never emotions - other than their complicity in protecting the man who is her husband, his friend.

And, he realised with a jolt as his brother looked at him and read his mind, that this was understood; that Mycroft had always understood the ties that bound him to the woman who had almost killed him. However much he distrusted it. Distrusted her.

"Why did you not tell me Mary Morstan's history before now? Why you brought her team in as freelance black ops to deal with Tblisi? Why leave it to Sirius to do your talking for you?"

"Because if I had told you what was suspected about Morstan's past you would not have believed me. You think I am prejudiced against her. Want to destroy her. Your misplaced chivalrous tendency to defend her would have had you refuse to get involved, go to Tblisi at all.

"However. Without your unique eye and understanding we would probably end up condemning her out of hand with less information as a result. And would you want that to happen ? As a result of your obstinacy?"

"But you visited the playing field. You listened to Sirius. You compute. You would never have listened to me. You would have accused me of lying, manipulating, of peddling fiction as fact to turn you against her. "

He broke off. Waited for his brother to object and protest. Be angry and judgmental. But his younger brother said nothing, His face gave nothing away even though his silence spoke for him, for them both. So for now he merely waited.

And his older brother felt a jolt of something like fear in the face of such rare passivity and silence. When he would normally attack and sneer. So heard himself talking again.

"As for Nico's specific involvement…..no-one has more invested in this than him. No-one knows more of what is currently known. And needs to know all not yet known." Mycroft sat back and pondered his options. How much to tell, what to say. Which buttons to press.

"Is that your personal or your professional assessment?"

The younger brother turned the possibility of personal prejudice onto the older. Both recognised the irony of that in an eloquent clash of eyes.

"Don't ask silly questions." A pause waiting for a reaction that did not come, then a push forward: "Did he try to seduce you?"

"Silly question." A beat, a half smile at the very idea of anyone trying to get that close. "Unless he seduced you first?"

Mycroft Holmes hissed a breath but did not answer directly.

"Did he tell you about his wife?"

"Wife? No. He never mentioned a wife. Do you mean Nia? Tall, attractive girl. Drives a car."

"Nia is his sister and assistant. Did he not say?" Mycroft frowned, deep in thought. "So. He decided not to appeal to your sense of sentiment or obligation. Interesting."

"Not really."

"Perhaps not." He agreed and relaxed and took a breath.

"His wife, Tamro, was an arts curator at Tblisi museum, had a lot to do with planning and organising the exhibition, worked closely with the Embassy and the Ambassador herself. She was just one of the many who died that day."

"I wish he had told me."

"Like you, he hides much behind a bright and bold façade. Sirius, indeed. The brightest star in the sky."

"How fanciful of you to say so. His position is immaterial, even if it explains his continued interest."

"Indeed so. What explains yours?"

"As always, to be the person who knows the unknown. If Mary was involved. Or someone else was. Why the attack happened, why the siege continued for so long. Why so many died. If Mary was involved….when her team had been commissioned as freelancers to break the siege…did that commission conveniently connect to someone in the British Government? Someone that is not, in fact, you, the mere contractor of her services."

"We had used AGRA before. They had history and results in such situations. It could have been anticipated that after so many failed attempts AGRA would be brought in," Mycroft confirmed.

"I cannot believe the entire episode was a plan to steal something as insignificant as the Black Pearl. Far too sentimental. But what was the point otherwise?" his brother continued as if he had not spoken.

"We know Mary had worked for Magnussen. Was there a connection there, blackmail, perhaps, a typical Magnussen manipulation? Or might there even have been a Moriarty link? Mindless mischief and murder are very much his style…..and destroying Moriarty's criminal web took me into several former Russian satellites. "

In response his brother rapped his knuckles on the table. Leant forward, looked severe.

"Don't let yourself be sidetracked by an old obsession. You know Moriarty is dead."

"But is he? Is he really, Mycroft? I saw him shoot himself in the head. And yet….his body disappeared from the roof of Bart's. His criminal cells remained remarkably loyal to a dead man, which was why it took me so long to dismantle them.

"And what if Moriarty is really someone else? The first we knew of him was when he killed Carl Powers. He said so himself. Yet he is the same age as me: for a child so young to have that impulse to kill, and to kill an older boy - that marks a true juvenile psychopath, Rare, but not unknown.

"I have tried to trace, but have never found, a child called Moriarty within the orbit of Carl Powers. And for him to have such an international criminal reach - when and how did it start? Who exactly is Moriarty? What if he isn't Moriarty at all? And what is his background to achieve so much of evil, so young? All that is evil, all that is concealed."

"Stop it, Sherlock. You have obsessed on that vermin for long enough. Concentrate on Tblisi."

"I am doing."

"Are you really? I trust you to see behind what is to be seen, Sherlock. Do you understand me? There is no actual urgency, not after six years. Yet as time goes on an answer becomes even more vital to balance the scales, put so much to rest. For the nations involved, the families of the survivors. Justice. Truth. Closure, and all that."

Brother shared thoughts with brother with rare unity.

"The recent whisper linking Thatcher, Tblisi and the siege was tiny, a single source. Sirius is preternaturally alert on the matter. There may be nothing to find…."

"But you don't quite believe that, do you, Sherlock? So is it time you broach the matter with Mrs Watson?"

"I can't. Not yet. I really can't. If I do that - when she is currently suspicious of me, while her husband is angry with me - I have to be careful not to be frozen out. For then I will find nothing. Nor be in a position to."

"Angry? Frozen out? Why?"

So he told his brother about Nico Sologashvili's possible identification of Mary Morstan as Mary Johnson. And the need to get close enough to prove it. How he had done so. And what else had happened in the hospital earlier.

"You have always know Dr Watson's capacity for violence," Mycroft observed.

"Yes. But never against me. Not really. It has always proved useful."

"You understand it does not really matter if Mary Morstan is indeed Mary Johnson? Or why?"

"Of course. Because Mary Johnson herself may also be a construct. Just the earliest assumed identity discovered so far. That the person we call Mary is good at reinventing herself and hiding in plain sight. Did you know she was Mary Johnson?"

"I …finally suspected as much." Mycroft turned his head away from the unblinking stare of his little brother. He had an admission to make and did not want to look into those sea storm eyes. "Contrary to what you might think, I have never actually kept anything from you, Sherlock.

"Originally I simply did not like the presence of a fiance in John Watson's life because of the complications this would cause you both. But you were still dead when she first appeared….and we had eased back on observation of Dr Watson after two years.

"So I stood back from him - from them. Her presence distracted him from his grief at losing you. At that time she was just a woman, just a nurse receptionist colleague he was dating. No alarm bells there then - just a bereaved friend moving on in to a relationship.

"I have employed many agents in my time, Sherlock. I did not recognise her. She is very good at what she does. Shapeshifting. Hiding in plain sight. Nothing about her - until she shot you - triggered my suspicions. Or even yours. "

"She must not return to her old trade. She must remain a nurse receptionist, wife and mother. Boring and ordinary and quiet. For her sake and for John's - I do not want her deadly any longer."

"And I want fairies at the bottom of my garden."

The dead tones of the British Government brooked no argument.

Hiss brother frowned, looked away. Mycroft recognised the signs of furious thought behind the blank look that was far from resigned. After a moment he risked a question. Softly, neutrally, this time, and without pressure.

"What do you mean to do?"

"Nothing immediately. As I told you and Lady Smallwood the other day - I wait. I wait for news and watch for that connection to be made between Thatcher and Tblisi, the black pearl and the siege. I wait. Watch. Search intensely. With no leads there is no alternative.

"I bide my time and see what transpires. Or what I can provoke. How-what-and-why. Too much remains unanswered."

"How do you mean to do that?"

"'Softly, softly catchee monkey' Not my style, but needs must." He sighed and shook his head. "I must go deep undercover."

He pulled a face. Straightened his shoulders.

His brother, watching intently, found himself give an involuntary shudder. As if a goose had just walked over his grave.

"How do you mean to do that?" he repeated.

"New problem, new tactics." A shrug. "Mary is the only lead I have. So I must stay very close to Mary and John, even though the timing is poor. They will be absorbed with their child, with John's career. Neither are in a place to be working cases with me now, or remain close to me on my terms. So I must remain close to them on theirs."

He paused, and shook his head, a tremulous twist to his lips.

"They want me to be godfather to their child, Mycroft. They tell me I am part of their family. So whatever that means, it is the line they have given and I must follow. So I have to go deep. Dig deep. Become a dutiful godfather, a supportive Uncle Sherlock. Friend and supporter. Even - God help me - babysitter and all round good egg." His face moved in distaste. "That is what they want of me."

He didn't add: _'And I can't bear it.'_ He didn't have to. His brother knew.

"You can't do this," Mycroft returned, reasonable and calm. "Emotion is not good for you. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock. You cannot connect with the Watsons at that level. It will damage you. Warp your judgement. Once you have let emotion in…..you can't throw it back out with the bathwater. "

"I know. But I must take that risk. There is no way I can stay as close as I need without. I must pretend I am learning how to love this 'family of my heart,' as they call themselves, let emotion in. Charm. Reassure how I love them and want to be part of them. That I am growing, From total arse into ordinary arse, you might say. That they are improving me." His lip curled.

"And hope that keeps me close enough to see when she either draws something or someone to her - or she simply finally trusts and confides in me….."

He did not tell his brother about the insurance policy. Or the will. About the plain words immortalised in terse officialdom yet burning his soul from steel into something he could not define: ' _dear and trusted friend.' Dear. Trusted. Friend._

"You're mad. You - _you_ -can't do this. She's not worth the damage this will do you."

"Shut up. You want answers. You have been six years wanting answers. And we need those answers. There is no choice."

"Sherlock…."

"I told you when you first mentioned this - that you had no idea what you were asking of me. So please don't look quite so stricken, Mycroft. Only I can get close in, and this is the only way to do it.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll survive. Always been the freak, the high functioning sociopath, the psychopath. The machine who needs to become human. So here I am. To all effect finally doing that. "

He could have been talking about a stranger. It goaded Mycroft into humanity.

"You have always been human, you stupid child. You have never been a freak or a psychopath the way other people have too easily labelled you. Oh, a degree of autism certainly, but for you that has never been a problem but an asset

"Life put too much on your shoulders too young. And your shoulders were too capable, even then. Betrayal trauma, lack of nurture kinship, and thus an Atlas complex. Textbook. I'm sorry. I should have done more…."

"Shut up. What I am is not your fault. And if I wasn't already a freak I would have no way to tackle this case You cannot - and should not - stop me. At the moment this problem seems small. Quiet, perhaps. Not desperately important in the overall shape of things. But it will break and grow, I can feel it. To solve this I must stay close and grow with it, whatever happens.

"You may not like it, brother mine. But you _will_ let me run, and you _will_ trust me."

And he stood, turned and left the room. And for once the British Government did not have the last word. Could not find one.

o0o0o

He registered that he was exhausted, drained by all that had happened over the past few days, the decisions he had made. Drew all the curtains in the flat before he even took off his coat.

At something less than half speed he showered and dressed, after a fashion, in old tee shirt and pyjama bottoms under his oldest blue merino dressing gown, and retreated into the sofa and the darkness.

Slept or drifted or watched the ceiling as time slipped past him without the hours or minutes registering.

At some point he was aware of the vibration of doors in the house opening and closing. Of footsteps, of the air in the room moving, of the light beyond his closed eyelids shifting. While he remained stretched out and immobile along the full length of the sofa.

He knew who was in his space, who was beyond his defences, without even looking.

"What?" he asked petulantly into the silence surrounding his visitor. "What are you doing here?"

He opened his eyes a little, turned his head a fraction.

John Watson was leaning on the door jamb, looking at him with a cool and unreadable expression. He looked as if he had been standing there for some time.

"I came to see if you were all right."

"Why? You're not my doctor any more. You said so. Go away."

There was a long silence.

"I suppose I deserve that."

"Yes, you do. Go away."

"Not so easy. Your brother asked me to look after you."

"When did he do that?"

"On the plane. After your exile that wasn't."

"A moment of feeble mindedness on his part. Ignore it."

"He did say please. Which was not exactly necessary. I'd do it anyway. You do know that."

A dismissive little shrug, an impatient snort.. Eyes closed again, face turned away.

John Watson looked again. Saw not the usual untouchable and unreadable Sherlock Holmes but a mere man, bone tired and rumpled and weary. Battle weary, even? As a result of whatever had happened during two short days in Eastern Europe?

Dizzy, he had said earlier, in the hospital. Off balance. Not well. And how often did the consulting detective admit human weakness? So perhaps the words were truth after all. Yes. But something else, too.

If this has been anyone but Sherlock Holmes he would have read the expression on the too pale face as sadness and regret. Misery, even: Was that really what he could see in that set and schooled expression, the hunched shoulders, the tense hands? Resignation and perhaps a little fear?

"Are you sulking?" he asked.

"I never sulk."

"Yes you do."

"With cause."

John Watson had been smiling a little despite himself: Sherlock in a sulk was nothing new. But on the last two words he took an involuntary step into the room.

"What's going on, Sherlock? What are you doing? What are we doing? To each other?"

"I'm not doing anything, John. It's all in your head. Whatever it is all in your head.".

"Is it? I nearly pushed your teeth down your throat earlier. How could I even think of doing that? To you."

The doctor approached slowly and quietly, never taking his eyes off Sherlock Holmes' face. But he did not switch on a light.

"It doesn't matter," was the quiet reply. "I understand, you see. You are a man in love. Distracted. A new father. In a highly emotional state just now. Protective."

"I get very worried when you seem to understand human motivation."

John Watson sat down on the coffee table at the side of the sofa, released a deep breath, tension flowing out of him. Sherlock Holmes saw, and heard, but did not comment. Reflected that uncertainty and concern in his friend would make his plan easier to implement.

"Hmmm."

This was the moment. The moment to retreat into his normal enigmatic silence; all more or less forgiven if not forgotten. A rift there still, unaddressed, unanswered. Unanswerable, perhaps. A black mark smudged into greyness, perhaps forever. But negotiable.

Or to commit to the cause and the case in hand, to this new course. And much as a flash of fear about stepping into new and uncharted territory shook him to the heart, he knew he had no workable alternative.

He had to go with this. If not now, it would be later. So best to start now. While John Watson was here and listening to him. Alone with him, without either of them pretending something ( _pretending what?)_ or with Mary sharing the moment, with them yet always between them. With John seeming compliant in this moment, and seeming to care.

There would be no better time to begin. With no other way to stay close to John and Mary. Not when he had spent so long trying to push them away from him for their own safety. Not now when he had to change tack, to be in a position to be on hand if anything happened.

He heard his voice, and it sounded like the voice of a stranger.

"John. Please do not trouble yourself with this. It is all very simple. You decided to be a grown up, change your lifestyle. And that's good. Mary is good for you. And you deserve to be happy and enriched by your life with her. "

He paused, hesitated. Did the words sound as juvenile and empty to John Watson as they did to him? He risked a look. Apparently not. The doctor was looking at him with full concentration. Not blinking, frowning a little. Utter belief, Sherlock Holmes realised with a spasm of pain where his heart should be. So the words continued. It was getting easier with practise….

"I am only your friend the freak. And there is no place for me in that happy normality. So you are troubled and confused. You either have to walk away from me right now, or….." and that was where words and courage failed him.

"Or what?"

"H…I…Hell!" He stuttered, trying to get the vulnerable words he needed to say past his teeth. And without them making him retch. Began again.

"Help me, John. You have always been my sanity, my touchstone, my Palatine guard. You have saved my life so many times…."

He sat up abruptly. Their knees almost bumped: were they too close? Or had Sherlock Holmes put himself too close to be seen? He could only hope so.

"Sherlock?"

"I am a horrible person. I don't know - don't understand - why you stick with me. I am horrible to you. But you're right. What you've always said. I am an idiot. I need to grow up."

He looked up. John Watson's eyes were wide. Shocked. Bruised.

"What are you on about?" he asked, voice rough with concern and surprise at he words he was hearing. "Are you ill?"

"Ill? No. Trying to get better you might say, trying to…change."

"Sherlock. You're not making any sense….."

John Watson's hands fluttered in confusion, and Sherlock Holmes caught them. Held on tight. John Watson watched tears form in the storm grey eyes and flow unheeded down the gaunt pale face. Drip unheeded off the end of his chin

"Sherlock, don't. Just don't. Don't break both our hearts, you total bastard."

He was braced for a snappy sarcastic reply that would mock his unguarded words. Not for the single sob that seemed to rock his friend's body to the core. He felt the ripple of it under his hands, saw Sherlock Holmes flinch and turn away from himself. But still hang on to him.

"Are you ill? I mean, really ill? What is it?"

"I can't be me any more, John . I don't know who I am. Or even why I am still deserving to be walking this bloody planet. It's like I've had some sort of epiphany. I see you and Mary, happy and in love, despite everything that has happened. And I saw and helped your tiny baby pass into the world and I suddenly saw what I am missing. What you have always tried to make me understand. Love and companionship, family and caring and support.

"Then I looked at me. Alone, unloved, and rightly so. I am horrible. How can I spend the rest of my life like this, being me? A machine. No-one needs me as a person. Will mourn me when I die. And how bloody tragic is that? I don't want to be that alone any more. I want to change. Be worthy of you both."

The explosion of words stopped as abruptly as they had started. Were replaced by a brief paroxysm of tears that snuffled to a halt.

The hands clasping John Watson's released quickly, as if in spasm, pushing his friend away and covering his own face with them instead.

"Leave me alone, John. I am ashamed you have seen me like this. Forgive me. Pretend this weak moment never happened. Go back to your wife. Just don't tell her what a fool I have made of myself."

In the tense silence that followed, John Watson rubbed his friend's arm with his knuckles in a brusque, wordless gesture of sympathy.

"No. You're OK. Too hard on yourself as always, you idiot. I'll go, if that's what you want. But I'll see you soon."

He drifted six steps to the door. Opened it and went out, but paused and turned back.

"Mary and I love you. However you are. However you think you are. We'll help you, Sherlock. Anything you need. Don't worry like this any more."

A tearful face turned up to him, eyes as large as the moon, expression more open and unguarded than John Watson had ever seen. It made him catch his breath. He wanted to believe, to go back, give comfort. But that was not the way to help Sherlock Holmes. So instead he smiled, winked.

"See you soon," he repeated. "Things will look better in the morning. And I'm sorry about…earlier. The hospital. You know."

Sherlock Holmes nodded, speech beyond him, and buried his face in his hands.

His friend moved away reluctantly, closed the door behind him and went slowly down the stairs.

As soon as he heard the front door close behind him Sherlock Holmes leapt to his feet. Dashed the tears from his eyes with his dressing gown sleeve. Swore loudly into the silence of the room and opened his laptop.

Things to do. Plates to spin. Showtime over for the day.

o0o0o

She claimed her turn before he was ready. He had tried to work out a ploy against her cleverness but knew, in the end, he would have to play her by ear. For she claimed and demanded his attention before he could claim hers.

And in the end he did not have to think about what he would say or how he would say it. Instead of a greeting his first words to her were both direct observation and security concern. Instinct spoke.

"This is not my usual table. Shall we move?"

She had started to stand to greet him, but he waved her back into her chair and made the social kiss to the cheek that was expected of him as her face rose to his - soft warm skin, sparkling blue eyes, hint of _clair de la lune -_ before sitting down opposite her.

Not at the window seat table Angelo knew he preferred and always reserved for his use, but a smaller table for two in a less noticeable corner by the kitchen. The table where he and Angelo would sit together years ago while they put the world and each other's lives to rights.

But that was then. And this was now. Harder, more complicated, more dangerous in every way.

She was sitting with her face in shadow, back to the rear of the building, facing forward to see whoever entered without being seen herself. Strategic. The perfect defensive position of a professional rather than the cosy booth that would have been chosen by a mere mother.

"I prefer it here. Tucked away. Able to see all around me," she smiled a slight social smile, the professional unable to resist exercising self protection when out in the world, a look from under her brows assessing him. Then finally a brief grin. "And so I can keep an eye on my daughter. Who has been kidnapped."

She gestured with her head. In the kitchen he could see the blue baby carrier and the little shape within it, sitting on the vegetable preparation table and being surrounded by adoring baby worshippers in the shape of the restaurant staff: not least Angelo himself, who could be seen tickling bouncing baby toes and chuckling, muttering something delightedly about _bambino_ and _bella_ and _occhi carini_ and _piccolo_.. …

"Like all Italians he adores babies. She will be totally safe there with him." He watched and nodded and smiled for an appropriate moment, and then dismissed the child from his mind.

"You are sitting prettily in the safest place in the restaurant. Eyes to the room, watching the public door, at point of command. While I sit looking towards the kitchens, the nuts and bolts of the operation, Watching the exit. Minding your back."

"As always. Like I promised to always watch yours." She demurred, unexpectedly caught his eye and grinned directly into his eyes. More relaxed now. Conspiratorial?

His spine straightened. Let battle commence.

"That was some text that you sent me. Did you think I would refuse to see you?"

 _Truth Sherlock. Kill or be killed. You and me. Know too much, need accord ASAP. Lunch Angelo's tomorrow. We don't tell John._

It had been unaddressed and probably the first thing she had done after returning home from hospital with her baby. His reply had been a simple _Yes._ It was enough.

She looked at him levelly now and fidgeted with cutlery and truth.

"Yes, " she stated plainly. "So thank you for coming. We need to ….confer. Without John knowing. Without being observed.."

"Are you trying to sound paranoid?"

"Of course not. But I know this is your favourite restaurant. I hoped we would be comfortable here. Safe."

The stunning sparkling smile again. But he did not smile back. He did not trust the purpose of that smile. Or what it was hiding.

"Angelo is one of my oldest friends and has what we may call a dangerous reputation in his own right. But I can only guarantee my own safety in this place. He would protect me before you. Chivalry is such an overrated virtue, don't you think?"

"He is very like you, then."

"Pot. Kettle," he observed. "Get to the point."

"You. Three days ago. In hospital." She leaned forward to speak very quietly. "What was that all about?"

"You know very well. Otherwise you would not have given me an alibi to appease your husband. Thank you for that, by the way. Came in handy."

"For his sake. Not yours."

"Naturally. We will always act in concert to protect John Watson, Mary Johnson. If that is who you really are."

Her sudden tension was palpable.

"So you know about her. I thought - no, I knew - that was why you …touched me the way you did. To check that scar, the one thing that could give me away. How did you know about that?"

"Because I am Sherlock Holmes. And I know everything, eventually. It would be far easier if everyone told me everything at the start. But sadly they never do. So what do you have to tell me, Mary Johnson? If that is who you really are."

"What a suspicious mind you have, Sherlock. Such a pity."

"Is it? This is the second time you have deflected rather than given an honest answer."

"Is it? Perhaps because I don't see what Mary Johnson have to do with anything here and now."

"She has absolutely everything to do with it, Mary. Because Mary Morstan is a highly respected killer. But Mary Johnson is something else. In another league. And I fear for her."

"You do? Why would you bother?"

"Because she is like me. Unique. Strong. Prepared to go the extra mile. So I respect her. In another time I might have feared her. In another life I might have even loved her."

"For herself? Or her talents?"

"You're the clever one. You decide."

"This does not sound like you."

"One lives. One grows."

"You were born fully formed."

"Thank you. I take that as a compliment."

"My God, Sherlock Holmes," she hissed, "What do I do with you?"

"I don't know, Perhaps if _you_ tell _me_ why you summoned me here so urgently and secretly then _I_ may be able to tell you." Even he could hear how haughty his voice was, how offensive his words might seem.

"Sherlock…can you please just be human? For once?"

 _This - this - was his opportunity! His chance to step down from his high horse and show her there was a human side to him. Vulnerability, fragility. A need for her sympathy and understanding. He drew in a deep breath and steeled himself to change in her eyes, to reduce himself in stature before her._

"I am trying, Mary, I am trying to be human. It is hard. It does not suit me. I…don't know how to do it." He shook his head and put his hands to it, tugging his curls Snarled in frustration. Looked up at her with a look of such intensity it pushed her back in her chair with it's force.

"You wanted to talk to me alone. Without John knowing. Not for the first time." he paused, but she did not deny it. In rooms, in a hospital, in a prison cell. They both remembered all the times without speaking of them. Times when their empathy had had nothing to do with affection or friendship. "So here is what we will do this time

"We stop playing games of diplomacy and twisted honesty and we will talk, we will hide nothing from each other. And then we will not speak of this conversation again. And John will continue not to know . About what we discuss. . .why we discuss it. And what it means."

She looked at him. A long, level, unrevealing look.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me what you need. And you know I have always - always - vowed to protect the three of you. So force yourself, Mary. Trust me. Talk to me. Tell me your deepest fears. And then I might tell you mine."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because you need to talk to someone. Clearly. And talking to John isn't doing it."

She glared at him angrily, mouth a tight fierce line. He looked back and waited. And eventually she released a breath, relaxed her shoulders.

"You are right. You are always right," she remarked with resignation. Shook her head when he offered the smallest smile of encouragement.

"Nothing prepares you for motherhood. It is enormous. Life changing. I had wanted it for so long. To just be ordinary….."

"Just begin at the beginning," he reassured. And she laughed. Looked down at the menu with blank, overwhelmed eyes.

"I don't even know where the beginning is, Sherlock. And that's the truth. Mary Johnson…."

"Another alias," he interjected, "Who are you, Mary? Really?" But she carried on as if she had not heard him.

"I was a nurse. Then I got a gun put in my hand so I could wave it around to protect the women and children in my care…in a war torn part of Africa. Waving a gun did not work well, so I had to learn to shoot the thing. In the air, at first. Then towards a limb. Then into the centre of someone's chest.

"And that was the first death I made to make death stop. Ironic, eh?" She grinned at him. That urchin grin that charmed and took years off her face. "I found I was good at protecting people by doing that, getting rid of bad guys. And I learned how to do that better, And before I knew it, I then realised there were lots of nurses to do my job, but not many people who could do my work.

"And somehow, that became my new profession. I was good at it. Eventually I became part of a team. Agra. We were good, Sherlock. Bloody good."

"Why? Why you?"

"I guess….because the four of us had come up a different way; we thought out of the box. Couldn't be second guessed. In another life we had been a nurse, a fireman, a child soldier, a nightclub bouncer. We were different. That made us successful."

"Until Tblisi."

"Until Tblisi. And I'm not talking about that."

"Why?"

"Because it's still raw. I lost everyone. In a failure I still don't understand. But it changed my life."

"You had been out of nursing too long to retain your registration. So you became a nurse receptionist. And eventually met John."

"Yes. I had not been looking for a husband. But, as they say, my biological clock was ticking. And John was….special. A complex man beneath that very ordinary exterior. A doctor and a soldier, An adventurer. But you knew that. You recognised that in him too " She offered a smile. Complicit. "Something in his soul spoke to me…I had thought I would find every man I met ordinary, unable understand the violent and lethal life I had led. If I ever confided…..

"And he was so sad. He had lost his best friend to suicide. When I learnt his best friend was the inimitable Sherlock Holmes I did not worry. Sherlock Holmes had gone. Until he reappeared. Didn't you just.

"A stupid disguise. A stupid accent. Ludicrous timing. And John was so angry. I made the mistake of assessing you as a fool. A fop. A spent force. You soon proved me wrong."

"I know all this. Why are you telling me all this?"

"I shot you. I meant to kill you. So you will understand when I ask you to return the favour. " She leant close, lowered her voice so only he could hear her, her expression serious.

"Will you kill me, Sherlock Holmes?"

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

The relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Angelo Grimaldi is detailed in the O'Donnell short story _At Angelo's._

Tiblisi's Museum of Fine Arts is almost 200 years old, the major repository of Georgian art and culture over the centuries, and part of a larger museum complex on Rustaveli Street that include a former temple and seminary.

Softly, softly, catchee monkey: Thought to have originated from Black English more than a century ago, the phrase indicates catching a target quietly without it startling or running away. Frequently ascribed to Scouting founder Baden Powell, it was first found in an 1832 book of Scottish proverbs and appears to have come from an African phrase. It inspired the title of iconic UK TV crime series, _Softly, Softly_.

Atlas Personality: From Atlas, the Greek god who carried the world on his shoulders, this describes someone who took on adult responsibilities at too young an age, and liable to be a compulsive caregiver and problem solver in adult life. Characterised by depression, hypersensitivity, inability to assert their own needs. Although appearing to function normally they may have an inner rage, a denial of fun and love, feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Sherlock's past relative to this within this story universe is explained in the prequel to this, _The Magnussen Legacy._

Palatine Guard: A military unit of the Vatican, an elite Roman guard troop, traditionally watch guards more than warriors renowned for a nobility of spirit.

Bambino, bella, occhi carini, piccolo: Italian terms for baby, beautiful, cute eyes, little one


	7. Chapter 7

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 7

 _Someone you have to let in . Someone whose feelings you spare. Someone who, like it or not, will want you to share - a little, a lot, And always be there…..(Stephen Sondheim, Being Alive; Company)_

"Will you kill me, Sherlock Holmes?"

He was rocked backwards at her words and sought to remain impassive, his eyes reflecting nothing. Telling her nothing.

"You jest," he said non-commitally.

"I wish," she said. Almost to herself. Almost under her breath, almost unheard, but his eyes were reading the movement of her lips. Assessing, deducing.

She was still affecting that awful bright red coat, which was not flattering but capacious to allow for the physical changes of pregnancy, forgiving in design but still did not suit her, and drained all the colour from her face.

And here she was. At a meeting of her own instigation. Looking unhappy and on the verge of…something. Tears? Decision? Doubt? Desertion? The very thought of sitting here in Angelo's and listening to what she had to tell him - and to tell only him, because it was clear John Watson had no part in this, filled him with dread and an odd little swoop of anxiety.

Here and now, Mary Watson. Even though she had barely recovered from childbirth. Even though the first thing she had done when home from hospital, with a little peace and quiet to assimilate her new life, with John returned to work at the surgery, had not been to ease into that new life and motherhood, to bond with her baby, establish a care routine.

No. The first thing she had done when alone had been to contact him. And arrange an assignation.

So was she simply pale today because of physical exhaustion and life changes? Her sense of purpose, her determination to have some sort of difficult conversation with him? And what was behind this unnecessary and clearly daunting project she had imposed upon herself? And what would it demand of her? And of him?

And even more worrying - why did this meeting not appear to involve her husband? Allow John and their baby to influence her and turn her attitude into something softer and more emotionally motivated? Allow their presence to temper or even dismiss her professional sense of purpose from another, earlier and harder life? A new attitude which would let them all finally live in peace and domesticity, quietly, heads down, and free from danger. A change everyone would understand, believe and accept. All the things other new mums did.

And yet that was far too simple, wasn't it?. So back to her old ways and with barely a pause.

So. She was still Mary Morstan then, there at the heart of herself. Unchanged by becoming Mary Watson and unbowed by childbirth. And why was he really not surprised?

The question was simple, then. Was being Mary Watson - the person she was now, at this very moment,- a pose, a disguise or an ambition? He needed more data, and until then would not, indeed could not, allow himself to exercise any reaction to her today except his most detached objectivity. How else would he learn what she was planning? What she wanted? How she would manipulate o, the child - and himself? Id she could? If he was prepared to let her.

He controlled his reaction, his breathing; and his body language and so his expression remained unreadable. However intently she peered at him.

And so he waited, watched how eyes continue to avoid his, watched her hands turn white as she grasped the menu she was looking at with too much focus and not enough attention.

She had applied her make-up with care, her mascara immaculate, her lipstick neat and fresh. She was, like all women, wearing her cosmetics as armour, as if the cosmetics themselves would protect her, would hide the reality of her reactions about what she was going to say, to how he would act and react in turn.

"I recommend the braised rabbit papparelle," he offered, calm and chivalrously helpful. "Or if you want a simple light lunch, .Angelo's acquacotta is excellent - a Tuscan vegetable soup with poached egg. Or perhaps something simple and nourishing? The spinach and feta cannelloni is excellent….."

"Sherlock, stop. Didn't you hear me?"

She looked up at him and was smiling slightly now. Thinking she knew him, thinking he was merely deflecting and avoiding the way he always did

"Of course I heard you. But I am not taking what you say seriously. Post natal depression is common. Hormone level adjustment after childbirth. Nothing to be ashamed of, well documented. Traditionally diagnosed as 'being in need of a good cry,'" he said dismissively. "But in fact a very real mental condition that can persist for years."

"I am not depressed," she said. Firm, quiet: one honest answer at least, he thought. It did not reassure him.

But before she could say more Billy Grimaldi came and brought breadsticks and iced water, took their order, retrieved their menus with sharp eyes that defied comment, and returned to the kitchen.

"I am not depressed," she repeated as soon as they were alone again.

"Then explain yourself. Why you even think you can throw such a ludicrous request at me?"

"Because, God help me, I trust you."

"Huh."

"And because…." she persisted, looking up at him suddenly, face unguarded for once, unusually serious. Hesitant, uncertain. "Because I know you are the only person who will understand."

"Emotion, human understanding, relationships. Not my area."

He lifted his head, withdrew a little. Watched her rally and reach for him again. Display her determination. Instinct not impulse. How interesting.

"You are making this difficult for me," she decided firmly. "Deliberately testing me."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because although I trust you, you don't trust me? Because you - more than anyone - know what I am capable of? Because we have a unique relationship; how many people have lunch with the person who has shot and killed them once before?" She nodded to herself, certain.

"And because you think I should be having this conversation with John."

"You should be having any and every conversation with John. Not with me. He is your husband. Your all."

"What a romantic thing to say."

"Don't be ridiculous. There is nothing romantic about me. It is a matter of your legal position as a married couple. Thus there should be loyalty to each other. Honesty. Truth. Partnership. While I should be nothing to either of you. Not any more."

"That is as inaccurate as it is sad. Truth is, John and me are one partnership. You and John something else, something I don't understand. And you and me are another. Something else, something completely different….."

He ignored her words, continued talking over her with a stronger, harder voice:

"No. You and I are not a partnership in any way shape or form. And I certainly do not want to have this conversation in secret with you. John already thinks there is something between us. And whatever he thinks it is, he is jealous of it."

A tiny inclination of the head, of recognition of that truth at least.

"You and John. Always you and John. What is it between you two that I don't understand? Will you tell me?"

There is nothing to tell. He will say he is my best friend. Flattering but untrue. You are his wife, so you should be his best friend. He chose you. He did not choose me. We have worked together, saved each other's lives. So we carry a part of each other's burden. It is as simple as that."

"And yet you will do anything for him. Anything to spare him hurt. To keep him alive."

"Mere humanity. Why call me out on that?"

"Because to shield him, it means you shield me - his wife. And the baby - our daughter. Who will be your godchild."

"I don't want that. I have no interest in children."

"Yet you have plenty of interest in her parents. So are you jealous of her? Of a week old child?"

"Of course not!"

" Jealous of me, then? For usurping your place at his side?"

"Oh, I see. You have thought about this. Too much, it seems, to come to such ridiculous conclusions. Apart from that idiocy, is there anything positive you can share with me as a result, Mary? Have you come to any conclusions on that?

"Of course I have! Stop being so bloody superior when you persist in hanging around my husband's neck like a camp follower! I don't spill my guts…your guts…."

Her voice had been rising. Not she half stood to make her point But a sudden and unexpected hand on her shoulder pushed her back down into her seat.

Angelo Grimaldi, curious about John Watson's wife and why she would want to hold a clandestine conversation with the doctor's best friend, had been waiting at table himself this particular lunchtime. Just in case he was needed. Had been catching snippets of conversation as he passed backwards and forwards past them, his frown deepening every time he glanced at them.

Now he put their meals down before them with a professional smile, patted her forcibly on the shoulder he had pushed. A firm deliberate gesture no other diner would notice as brake, not bonhomie - and leant into her side to dip his hand into the capacious shoulder bag hanging on the back of her chair.

"Need your baby bag," he said quietly as if nothing had happened. "The little one demands a fresh nappy….."

And he reached down and in, lifting out the supplies he needed from the top of her shoulder bag hooked on the back of her chair, the items needed contained in their own little drawstring duffle.

"No! I'll….." she began hastily. But he held her down with strong swift pressure. Deliberate and sure. Sherlock Holmes watched his face freeze and harden for a second as he looked down into the shoulder bag before the smile returned, even bigger and brighter than before.

"Hey, Mamma Watson! My three ex-wives say I have always been a failure as a husband but I am still an excellent grandpa! Changing a nappy is no mystery to me! You fear what I can do? I have no fear! "

He laughed then, all paternal patron, and patted her on the head with his free hand. Only someone who knew him, or was deep within the situation, would hear the threat in his last two sentences, his last four words.

Laughed again, swayed to one side, put a hand lightly, briefly onto Sherlock Holmes' face, drew the younger man's head towards him, nuzzled affectionately into the dark curls, whispered laughingly in his ear. Something that may have been a joke, or an affectionate aside. And so affecting; so very Italian and fatherly.

But what he actually said into Sherlock Holmes' ear was: " _Pericolo. Sta portando_ "

And Sherlock Holmes looked up at him, grinned back, and replied, as if in laughter:

 _Non sorpero. Siamo al sicoro_."

A look passed between them. And they smiled easily at each other. Old friends who had shared too much together, on the same wavelength.

"What? What did you both just say?"

There was a sharp edge to her voice, this woman who did not speak Italian, and neither man missed it, their very avoidance of eye contact at that moment speaking volumes.

"He said you are a wonderful devoted mother to carry so many supplies with you. I told him I was not at all surprised."

Angelo nodded briskly. "You see?" he assured. "I go, attend to your baby. You sit and eat. Enjoy my food."

He left them and retreated back into the kitchen . She relaxed suddenly and completely, as if the tension within her had been too much to carry any longer.. Bent to eat her meal as if with relief that it had broken the rising mood, changed the subject, allowed both of them to pull back from a difficult conversation. So did not notice the shuttered look on her companion's face as he also bent his head over his food. And for a few blessed moments there was silence.

His thoughts were fast and furious behind his impassive demeanour and had nothing to do with the food.

For Angelo Grimaldi had casually lifted out the baby things, had almost accidentally looked into Mary Watson's shoulder bag, had seen something unexpected, and dark, and uttered a warning. "Danger. She is carrying," he had said in deliberately heavily accented Italian.

And without missing a beat the reply flashed back in Italian too, and reassured: "Don't worry. We are safe."

As if he had not been shocked. As if he believed what he had just said, had not spoken simply to soothe and reassure the protective Angelo. As if the thought of her coming to meet him - _him. Of all people! -_ with a baby in one hand and a gun in the other did not anger and upset and disillusion him anew.

 _Ready to shoot me if I don't comply with your wishes, Mary? To shoot me again? Or just ready to threaten me with a gun to bend me to your will? Because I know what it is like to look down the barrel of your gun, to see the implacable ruthless determination in your eyes?_

 _Really? Is that it? Is it so simple? Or was your question, your earth shattering question about whether I would - could - kill you; was that more of a command than a request? Testing the waters, testing my nerve? And testing your own?_

 _Oh, Mary. How you disappoint me._

 _Do you really want me to shoot you? Now? Right now? Is that it? Take you into the privacy of a greasy back alley and put the barrel to your temple while the Grimaldi's care for your child in their warm hearted Italian way?_

 _Squeeze the trigger, lower you to the ground after that explosion, look into your eyes as they glaze over and you fall and die?_

 _And then have to try and explain it all away to John for you? Absorb and handle and manage his grief? Explain how being ordinary required too much bravery? That being a mother as beyond you? Beneath you, even? That you just wanted out? And had run out of alternatives?_

 _Or do you want me to do that later? Kill you to order sometime in the future, when real life gets just too boring? And with the same after effects for me to manage and rescue and deal with?_

 _Do you see that task as a compliment - or an insult? Something I would do for you - or for John? Let me make this clear. Just who the fuck do you think I am, Mary? To do that for you? What do you think I am? The voice of your conscience? Another assassin? Superman? The freak? A robot?_

 _So. Even here, even now, Mary Watson, wife and mother, you are still Mary Morstan - or is it Mary Johnson? Or is it Ros Adams? And would anyone, anyone but me, actually care if there was any difference between all these people you have been? And what you have now finally become?_

 _Even while carrying your new baby in your arms, even meeting a man you call a friend (officially your 'dear and trusted friend' what's more) Mary-whoever-you-really-are. A new mother who still carries a gun and thinks like an assassin._

 _Second nature. Even now. Even still. And I should be surprised? Caring? Compliant?_

He took a deep breath, forced down the bile and the anger and the sheer disappointment that threatened to bubble up and pour out of his mouth, and schooled his features back into something normal, something neutral and contained.

"I am disappointed in you, Mary," he said into empty air, into the space above her head. Controlling the hurt within him that was far from fear." I would have thought you felt safe enough with me to leave your gun at home. Whatever have you left under the sink lurking in that box of soda crystals instead? A baby's rattle? A lipstick? Something ordinary, perhaps? All things left behind you. When the gun wasn't."

Her hands and mouth stilled, and she looked at him from beneath her lashes. She swallowed hard and raised her eyes to meet his.

"You bastard," she said. "Is there anything - anything - that you don't know?"

"Many things. Like why you would want me to kill you." He put his cutlery down, as if absentmindedly, began to crumble a breadstick on his side plate. Trying to contain the anger and the disappointment. The hurt.

 _Dear and trusted friend. Right. A phrase that had haunted his brain and corroded his soul ever since he had read it, that formal wording in her will._

 _Dear and trusted friend. So. Utter bollocks, then?_

And she watched that steady little movement of his fingers, leaking his reaction, as if mesmerised. A tell, but a tell she could not read or translate.

He looked up, eyes hooded, and prompted as she hesitated.

"Speak quickly and explain fully. To carry a gun - here and now - to protect yourself and your baby. Protect you both from me. Is a slap in the face. Even to me."

"Sherlock, no! Wait! I'm carrying because….Oh! Yes! Because I could kill you! I could, but ….I could….!"

The words stuck in her throat and she half rose again.

Angelo Grimaldi, walking past and with hands occupied writing a meal order on his pad, paused and put his face close to Mary Watson's, his back to the rest of the room, and the genial host persona was swept aside as his real voice, low and harsh, spoke with dark simplicity direct into the shell of her ear.

"You hurt this man, you answer to me."

And as she stuttered, caught in another level of surprise and looked up into his burning, unblinking eyes, she flailed for and caught his hand for a second before turning a naked wild grin of desperation his way.

"Angelo, you get me all wrong! I want to save him, not hurt him. I owe him so much and he won't…."

"Recognise that? Allow you to make some return? That is his way. His strength is his weakness. Do you not know that? Accept his protection and thank him on your knees. On your knees."

They both looked at him as if he was an exhibit in a zoo. But he did not flinch from their surveillance. Or the widely different soft smiles they both gave him then.

Angelo Grimaldi, who had known Sherlock Holmes since he was an addled teenage rent boy on the streets, saw edginess and exhaustion, anger and hurt, steely self control.

Mary Watson, who had known him for mere moments in comparison, but in an entirely different way, registered coldness and control and a remote objectivity that was disturbing in it 's ferocity and focus.

They both saw a tall man in an elegant dark suit and white shirt, formal, self contained and offering a false first impression of conventionality contradicted by the androgynous face of rare beauty, the maelstrom of dark undisciplined hair, the icy unreadable eyes, the enigmatic aura of the man. The contrasts that were the key to his complexity.

Angelo Grimaldi read the silence of his two diners as something hard and important, and made an impulsive decision.

"You two need to talk, I think. More privately than here." The restaurateur drew Marty Watson's chair out for her, lifted her bag with slow courtesy and put it gently onto her shoulder. "My flat."

He took her elbow and guided her to a doorway behind them. Lifted a tray with a cafetiere of coffee and two cups from the counter that had been intended for a different table and put it into her hands. Said: "Go. Make yourself at home" and stood back as both she and Sherlock Holmes passed in front of him and up the stairs.

The white painted minimalist sitting room was tidy but welcoming. A cosy space.

She entered it first and placed the tray on the low coffee table and sat down on the burgundy sofa behind it. But Sherlock Holmes remained standing, hands behind his back at parade rest, silently watching her and waiting.

"Oh, please sit down, Sherlock. I'm getting a crick in my neck looking up at you! And you are making me uncomfortable."

It was the amused chiding voice with a smile in it that belonged to the old Mary, the first Mary he had known. The nurse receptionist who was sweet and calm and funny and had captured John Watson's attention and his heart.

"You are surprised?"

"No." She sobered. "I always knew this was going to be a difficult conversation. I shouldn't have sprung such an important question on you like that. But it has been burning at the back of my brain for ages. Months. Before the wedding even. And if I had realised then that I was pregnant….I might have done something stupid."

"Had an abortion? Done a runner? How much simpler all our lives would have been if you had," he remarked. He watched his logical unguarded words do their damage and was unmoved.

"Please. Please understand, Sherlock. I was sure you would understand….."

The plea in her voice caused his lip to curl in something like disgust, and she saw it.

"Talk to your husband. That's one of the reasons you married him, isn't it? Belonging, sharing, comforting. All that bollocks. You and John. Not you and me. Got it?"

"Christ! You are a hard man."

"Nothing you didn't know before." Her reaction slid over him without touching. "But isn't that why we are having this conversation? Because I am not John? Because I won't wrap you in tissue paper, believe your lies, refuse to acknowledge what you have done, the dangers of your past?"

He shifted his position. His eyes looking down at her held no warmth, so sympathy.

"Because I see you, Mary. Not the guise of wife and loving mother you wear now. I see you as the assassin you are. The black ops specialist, the freelance super agent you have always been.

"I'm not judging you for it. Whatever you may think. So just bloody tell me. Tell me what you need from me. Because I have told you this before. And you know it. I made a vow. To be there for you. You and John and your child. To protect you and keep you safe.

"So why don't you believe me about that? Or is it that you need even more from me? Is that it? He shook his head in frustration.

"Be honest with me, Mary. It's not much to ask. Not when you expect me to keep your secrets. And keep those secrets from John. So talk. Or I won't do it. Not any more."

"Sherlock, please!" Her hands rose and lifted across the coffee table to implore and speak for her. He did not take the hands reaching for him, but he did sit down on the armchair opposite her and dropped down to her level.

For a moment he paused. Considered. Drew breath and looked her calmly in the eye.

"Are you sure you want this conversation? Really sure? Because I don't. Not at all. For if we talk of whatever this is - and you tell me all you need to tell me - there is no going back, Mary.

"I will know you. Better than anyone else, even John. Know everything of who and what you are. And then I must carry all of your secrets for you. Make decisions on your behalf that may ensure your death or your survival. Carry a burden for you that you are afraid to share with John. But not afraid to share with me. How ironic is that, Mary?"

She was sitting on the sofa, leaning forwards slightly, and just looking at him. Silent. Motionless. And he could not tell if she was stunned at his analysis of what she was about to do, even though he did not fully understand. Or was just slow to find a reaction coming from underneath the weight of it.

"Have you truly thought about this?" he asked again, more gently this time. "How much you are asking of me? And exposing yourself? Revealing the you neither John nor I know."

She looked at him for a long moment. Silent, lost in her thoughts, all emotion on show. Although he didn't want to understand a single flicker or nuance of that. Understand nothing, especially the cold hard feeling in his chest, and the mental withdrawal he wanted to heed, the instinct for privacy and self protection he was pushing back and away to learn the truth. And how to make that knowledge help her.

For John. For Mary. Something in himself he would deny if she spotted it…...

"I really don't want to have this conversation."

His words were like a death knell. Flat and formal. His face hard and cold.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," she said. And her voice sounded broken. "Truly sorry. But I have to…..I need to explain. Need to cover myself. And there is only you I can say this to. My John is lovely, I adore him. He is brave and strong and he is your right hand man.

But in this you are my right hand man, not John. Your strength. Your determination. Your intelligence. Your lack of emotional engagement with me. All that is you. For me. I am so sorry."

She meant it. As she had meant little else. Simple words with deep and complex meaning. He understood - oh, how he understood! But still he remained motionless, silent. And did not help her.

"After Tblisi…." she began, and faltered. Waited for him to interrupt and cut her off. Looked at him and saw no pity or empathy. Only forensic interest and incision. She knew he normally had no fear of hurting others. Of being brusque and dismissive, difficult.

Yet somehow, seeing that absence of feeling in him, an absence of active negativity towards her, that reassured her. It was as good as a nod, as direct permission to continue. To do nothing to encourage her, to display nothing at all…well, he was just being himself.

Making no concessions for her (concessions she realised she did not want anyway) Not offering empathy or encouragement. Just listening. Quietly, keenly, and si far without judgment.

"After the failure of the Tblisi mission I knew I could not go back to….doing what I did for a living. There were too many deaths, this time. My team was wiped out.

"I was alone suddenly. Shaken, scared, and so very alone. I knew this was the end of that life. Knew I needed to hide away, to rest and recover. Find who and what I could still be, after all of that. Back to safety and England."

She was looking down at the floor, looking away from him. Not avoiding, but remembering. And not liking her memories.

"I could not return to nursing, my registration had lapsed. Did not want to return to Africa. I had lost the taste for adventure. Realised I had been pushing my luck for far too long. Do you understand?"

The briefest of nods. She pushed on .

"So I looked for something stable and unchallenging while I rested and regrouped. I had to use what I knew, so became a medical receptionist. Dull - perfect. Useful yet invisible. No risks, no big decisions, no battles. Tucked away in an urban medical centre where nothing e ver happened. A refuge, I thought.

"Then John arrived. He was sweet and funny. Handsome and so alone; his workaday courage called to something in me. I soon realised he only looked ordinary. He was sad and damaged and brave. Like me, I suppose, We sort of found each other. I thought it was because we were both adrift. But now - now I think it was because we instinctively recognised something dangerous and deadly about each other, even without speaking about it.

"I hadn't been looking…not at all….but it happened."

She paused for a bitter little laugh.

"Then I found out his secret. That his best friend had been Sherlock Holmes. Which scared me a bit. But I was growing to love John. To need his dependability, his humour, his sensitivity. His very strength, soldier and doctor. I knew I was safe with him, more than with any ordinary bloke. Because John was always so far from being ordinary it made me feel blessed. Rescued. As if I had been given a second chance.

"And after all, Sherlock Holmes was dead, right? Nothing and no-one to worry about. Nothing to fear. If Sherlock Holmes had been alive it would have been too dangerous for me. He would have seen through my disguise, exposed me.

"And then I would have had to leave John, disappear. Because I just knew Sherlock Holmes would see through the me I had become to see the real person - the killing machine - I had been. And that would destroy me.

"Would it also destroy John? John who had been so hurt by Afghanistan he thought of killing himself. John who had been destroyed by the death of the friend he loved more than he loved himself or anyone else. John, who was taking so long, working so hard to recover from life's blows.

"But together with me, John was moving on, and so was I. I was helping him do that. We even dared think we could be happy together, make a future. I had never thought of having a future before, just surviving. But a real life beckoned, like ordinary people had. After so many years on a thin red line, I needed ordinary. I craved it. It was all starting to work. I could taste it….."

Lost in her memories, her face softened, her eyes glimmered. He saw the change in her, the genuine softness in her heart and mind as she considered John Watson and their life together. And against his wishes and his nature, he believed every word.

He frowned at this display of emotion - ignored what it was triggering within himself - and watched her harder, keener.

She felt the change in him and looked up. Straight into his eyes. Blue and beguiling eyes into storm grey. Tried a smile. A tiny frown appeared between his eyes, but no other reaction.

"And then you came back from the dead. Who in hell comes back from the dead? Except you?" She laughed in wonder, not amusement, and shook her head, face rueful. "Everything shifted and changed beneath me as I hung onto John and our hopes of happiness. Hung on for dear life."

She sighed, and something within her relaxed despite herself. Her voice became softer.

"He was in agony for such a long time after your death, Sherlock, Was just starting to crawl out from under that despair. When you came back he was so hurt; so angry you had not confided in him. Why had you not confided in him, trusted him?"

She paused and waited for an answer she had wanted for so long. But he merely waved a dismissive hand and did not speak.

"I was ready to hate you for how much you had hurt him. But I couldn't. The first time I saw you, you were being silly and gauche and so very vulnerable as you tried to return to him. John's anger and hurt almost destroyed you, anyone could see that. And yet you did not berate him for his anger, or offer excuses. You just took the blows and rode with them.

"And I so admired you for it. He throttled you and thumped you and head butted you and you didn't defend yourself. Not at all. Not once. You just let him….punish you for saving his life, for protecting him, and for coming back for him. I admired you for that, too. Realised I liked you - instinctively, right from that first night.

"Of course you might think I am saying this now just to charm you to my will. Butter you up so you will do what I am asking. I could be. Of course I could be. But I am speaking the truth. And you know that, Sherlock. You know it."

He looked at her, still silent. Still unblinking. Without encouragement, she forced herself on.

"You bent yourself out of shape for us. To make us happy. Best man, composer, napkin folder…Both John and I recognised that. But we never discussed it. You were something too fragile to grab hold of.

"And then Magnussen found me again, recognised me. Wanted to use me And was then captivated by you. Threatened me - to use me against you. Wanted me to kill you…." she broke off, overwhelmed.

"And you did. You killed me. Well done." There was irony and the slightest hint of anger in his words. And both of them remembered their confrontation in Magnussen's penthouse.

Her threat to kill him if he took another step forward. His misplaced confidence in her not to shoot. How he had smiled a little in his trust and confidence in her, and stepped forward. How she had shot him as she had promised - without hesitation. And the puzzlement and shock as he had looked down at himself and watched blood blossom between the buttons of his shirt. Saw the red tide flowing before he fell.

How he had almost died while she rang for an ambulance. How he had died in the operating theatre. And how he had clawed his way back to life, to recovery and confidence and fitness. And how he had revealed who and what she was to John Watson alone. Not the police. Not Mycroft. Not members of his homeless network who would have killed her for him with a qualm.

How he had forced John Watson to return to her, for his sake and theirs. To learn again to love the new Mary; one he had never known before but was learning to recognise who she really was and her real worth. How he had protected her and released her from the prospect of blackmail by killing Magnussen. And by what had happened since.

How he had encouraged her into a new domesticity alien to him, put John and Mary's interests before his own, had delivered her baby in the back of a car. How he had never challenged her - but never underestimated her either.

What she already owed him weighed her soul down and hurt her just as much as it rescued and reassured.

And so she reacted from the heart this time, in Angelo Grimaldi's flat. On neutral ground where no-one could see or hear them. And they - she - could be honest, Finally.

"Stop it! Shooting you wasn't meant to happen! Shouldn't have happened! How many times must I apologise for that?" The cry came from the heart. But he did not soften.

"You didn't ever have to apologise for that," he responded instantly, voice low, anger battened down. "You know that - should have always known that. I have always made it clear I understood why you shot me, and I meant what I said. That I would still protect you. Will always protect you.

"But you have to let me, Mary. Help me to help you. Is that so hard?"

The voice was compelling now; and he was leaning forward, urging her on with his eyes. Those cold, all seeing, beautiful alien eyes.

"Yes it is," she admitted. Crumbling. She was crumbling before him. His strength, his control. "I have always stood alone. Like you. To trust, to allow someone through your defences… is not…easy."

He made a scoffing noise in his throat, a dismissive gesture with his right hand.

"And yet you offer me your ultimate trust. You invite me to kill you. Anomalous, surely."

"Do you understand why I would ask that of you?"

"Yes, Because you trust me more than you trust yourself. Trust me more than you trust John. Clearly." He paused, voice measured, calculating. "I am not sure which of us that insults the most."

"Sherlock. Please…."

She broke off, leant forward to calm herself with a mundane task. Pouring coffee and handing out the two cups. Watched and was amazed at how steady her hands if not her breathing.

"I am frightened," she offered quietly.

Not even that ultimate confession appeared to affect him.

"Of John? Of me? Your past getting up and biting you?"

"Of all those things. But mostly….mostly of myself."

He put his cup down then and sat back to survey her.

"Oh, Mary, Please don't tell me that."

There was finality in his words, a sense of disappointment. Something like exhaustion. Pain?

"I want to be honest with you. And that's the truth. My truth," she tried to explain herself. Found mere words failing her.

"Don't want to hear it. You want to pour out your feelings to someone? That's not me. Find someone else. Your husband preferably. I'm told that is what husbands are for. Tell me about Tblisi instead."

The disappointment showed in her face, and she could not bear to try to conceal it. She had put all her hopes into appealing to his conscience, personal and professional. To all they had shared over the past eighteen months. Knowing all that had happened, all he had done. And hoping for that illogical something more that would put the rest into context.

She realised she should have known better. Had a Plan B to turn to. But she had no plan B. No-one else she could turn to. And that was part of her increasing desperation.

With her past she had learnt many years ago how to walk alone. But since knowing John Watson she had learnt a new humanity, developed a new and loving softness that against all the odds gave comfort and maturity and internal peace

A softness she had hoped Sherlock Holmes would recognise and respond to. Oh, the delusion of such wishful thinking! She berated herself even as she hoped; tried to think of something he would respond to, some appeal that he would heed.

He is just remorseless, she thought, as she looked at him with a new and naked disillusionment and sense of defeat.. And then wondered why she had ever thought he would hear her out.

He always follows the facts, she thought, was never swayed by emotion. And yet…..she had shot him and seen him die. That had created a unique intimacy between them they both recognised and yet never spoke about. Having seen, close at hand and very personally, each other's courage, each other's pain.

She had seen him suffer. Seen him collapse in Baker Street in excruciating pain. Seen him awaiting another death in a prison cell. Seen him pushed beyond human endurance.

And seen him deliver her child on the back seat of a car and how something so natural and normal had flayed him alive.

Did not all those things show - even to him - that he loved and sacrificed and eased their way through a dark and dangerous world? All of them? Not just John, but herself and the baby too? He had vowed after all. He had promised…

"I like him," she had said on their first meeting. She had repeated those words quietly so John Watson had understood; and at the time she had felt that it was only her calm acceptance of this madman who had risen from the dead after two years, with his tuxedo and silly accent and pencilled-on moustache, which had stopped her soon-to-be-fiance from punching the younger and taller and more handsome man into the middle of the following week.

He had feelings, she thought furiously, she knew he had feelings. However much he denied their existence, however much he ignored them. And now it was so vital for her to reach the human heart that beat in that slight angular frame.

For there was only one Sherlock Holmes. And no-one else she could ever trust to help her, to reassure her, to answer her need. To allow and accept a trust that went beyond friendship and loyalty and even self sacrifice.

Fast and furious and almost frantic thought, a flat panic she tried to hide from his remorseless, reading yet unreadable eyes. But even as she struggled for self control she saw something move in his face as he registered the depth of her stress.

That little crinkle of a frown between his eyes that should have been boyishly endearing came and went. A tell, of sorts. And, unable to know what to do next, she simply waited.

Into a silence that was too long it was Sherlock Holmes who finally spoke. There was nothing in his face or voice that revealed his state of mind. But he made a concession to her - a small concession - but nevertheless it was a concession.

"Very well, But tell me about Tblisi first."

It was a compromise. A concession she could grab and hang on to. It might be enough.

She fought back the tears of relief. And she smiled at him. Nodded in agreement.

All was not lost. She had a chance now.

o0o0o

When Angelo Grimaldi came quietly up the stairs he found them sitting and drinking coffee. Looking friendly and civilised and almost relaxed.

"All OK? May I come in?" he asked from the doorway.

"Your restaurant, your flat," Sherlock Holmes replied. And Angelo grinned and presented the baby carrier.

"I am sorry, the little one needs her Mamma. And we need the space to work. Lunchtime rush," he said apologetically and put both baby carrier and baby on the floor by her side; dropped the baby bag by her feet.

"Need anything?" he asked mildly. The real question was asked of Sherlock Holmes, but he was smiling at Mary Watson. "More coffee?"

"We're fine," Sherlock Holmes replied, and she nodded in agreement.

"Good. Call if you want anything…." he said, and was gone.

For a moment there was silence. They both looked down at the baby. Clean now and sleeping, one little pink fist up to her face.

"Do you want to hold her? Would you like to? Your god-daughter to be….." she could hear the suggestion dribbling out of her; a need to have something safe and silly to say, to lessen the tension.

"Of course not. What a stupid idea. A baby? Me?" he made an angry noise in his throat, shifted his eyes, dismissed the child from his mind.

"Tblisi," he demanded.

"W..what? Oh, yes. Tblisi." She gathered her thoughts, too aware now of the child at her side, how surreal their conversation seemed. Talk of distant death and damnation with a tiny baby between them; the simple reality of here and now.

"Tblisi. What happened? How did you get involved? "

"We were called in as freelance black ops. Standard procedure. We had had successful hostage situations before. Official attempts to end the siege had all failed. So we were commissioned. We recce'd. Decided to go in from the roof. That ornate glass atrium roof. Rapelled down.

"Pretty standard. Used stun grenades to blind and disorientate hostage takers and hostages both. "

"What went wrong?"

"Bad luck and trouble. We had the situation under control and were evacuating when a small group of armed hostage takers came along the corridor as we were heading out. I suspect they had been checking on the children in a back room.

"Too many warring bodies in too small a space. I thought we were going to die. I threw another stun grenade, into a very enclosed space to confuse the enemy, break up the groupings. Classic tactic. As I did so my stun grenade hit a similar grenade being thrown by the other side.

"The combined double light burst and shock wave….. Must have taken everyone down. Flashbangs are supposed to be non lethal, but two set off together, in a narrow corridor packed with desperate people travelling in both directions? Light impact of a combined 14 million candela, two stun grenades throwing out 17 decibels each…..anything could happen. The last thing I remember saying to someone on my team who asked - _'what do we do now?'_ was _'We die.'_

""I remember…everyone in that corridor went down like skittles, us and them, knocked out by the impact.. I only survived by a fluke, I think. I came round with three or four people lying on top of me, thrown back onto me, one of them the leader of my team. They were all dead. I assume their combined body mass shielded me.

"The corridor, and the room we had just left, were already well alight, taking hold fast. Old building, dry wood. All the contents on fire, several of the bodies. The fire becoming more intense. I kicked my way clear and ran for the nearest window, through and out, pure instinct. It was at the back of the building. No-one saw me leave, all attention was on the front of the hotel and the direction of the fire.

"I saw no-one alive in there but me. I got away and to the dead drop letter box we had established earlier that day. It contained new identities and fake passports if we needed to make an emergency escape from the situation. Retreated to our secret assignation point and waited. Hoping. But none of the others came. I waited thirty six house when I only should have waited twenty four.

"I needed no further confirmation I was now on my own. No-one else had lived."

"You never reported back to the British Government? To the department that had commissioned you?"

"No."

"Why was that? Tell me more. Come on, Mary. That all sounds far too clean and simple, far too obvious."

"Best and safest to play dead, be dead. It sounds silly, now. But something about that mission never felt right to me. So I could not trust anyone in the aftermath. Feel safe to contact anyone, stick my head above the parapet. Best to be dead like the others. So I just slipped away. And here I am."

"What never felt right?"

"Any of it. All of it. The fact the siege had held for too long; had happened at all. That all the other rescue attempts had failed. That the bloody ambassador was so obstructive, so arrogant. That the original security had been questionable."

"I see. Final assessment? After all this time?"

"I never knew enough to judge. It all just felt wrong. As if there was a mole in the building, or as if the person in control - whoever that was - had a different agenda to the rest of us. Hard to put a finger on. And it wasn't my case."

She shook her head, all professional now, lost in his memories of what had happened six years before.

"I am always suspicious when so many people die in such a situation. It defeats the law of averages. So I played dead and became Mary Morstan. Nearly five years, my peace lasted.

"Until somehow I was on Magnussen's radar. There was never much Magnussen did not know. We had worked for him before Tbilisi, just a couple of times; I assume he spotted me because of all the society gossip about John Watson's marriage. That he recognised me, even though my name and my look were different. And perhaps those changes aroused his suspicions. That telegram at the wedding, from Cam…I knew it was him. I was terrified.

"Afterwards he contacted me. Wanted to use me, for a hit against you. Because I was so well placed to work from the inside. No-one would suspect me, the wife of Sherlock Holmes' best friend..

"I was trapped and the stakes were too high. So I went to his penthouse to kill him. To protect me, protect John. Even protect you. What a joke when I ended up killing you instead.

"That was the worst mistake I ever made. Panicked, I knew John was downstairs. Couldn't let him be involved; not when he carried an illegal handgun. Knew you were working a honey trap on Janine to get to Magnussen yourself. I needed most of all to stop this thing, to protect John, not just me. You know the rest."

Her voice came to a stop. He looked at her but still did not speak. Not until she put her head in her hands and, through her fingers, spoke very quietly.

"You know the rest," she repeated.

"I know nothing. Yet apparently you think I know it all. Even why you want me to kill you. But I have no animosity towards you, Mary. I never have. You know that

"Nothing you have just told me makes any difference to that. To me. And it will make no difference to John either."

"Oh!" she exclaimed on a sigh. "Oh. You still don't understand. And I have told you, Sherlock. I have told you. The person I am most afraid of is me."

"I still don't understand. So make me."

"I have been a killer for a long time. Most of my life," she began slowly and hesitantly."And yet here I am. Being ordinary. Wife and mother, tucked into the shadow of my lovely husband and the great Sherlock Holmes.

"But that is not me. It is not what I do. And yet…I can't now change the life I have chosen. Too many other people involved, you see.. I can't kill or disown my husband and baby. But what if….whatb if….none of this is good enough for me?

"What if I get bored and desperate? What if I need to break out? Get the adrenalin pumping again? Return to my real calling? What then?"

He shook his head at her.

"What if I get the urge to kill again? To claim back my old life? What if my old life gets up and grabs me back regardless? What if another old client turns up and recognises me? Wants me to do a wet job for them? What if the lure is to great? The fee too tempting? The need for excitement too desperate for sanity? What then, Sherlock?

"Because it is not as if I have married a bank nanager and gone to live in some suburban backwater, is it? My life is on the edge whatever I do. My husband is a brave and decorated soldier and doctor. He solves crimes with his best mate, the one and only consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.

"Death and danger are their middle names. So how can I stay on the sidelines of all their madness? Being housewife and mother is all very well when the most exciting thing on offer is cheating at bingo. It is a different landscape when your husband and his best friend solve murders, catch killers and rub shoulders with spies and master criminals.

"A familiar and fascinating danger that is so close to me I can still smell it. And now the baby is a reality….well, you can't hide a blundering pregnant me away in a spa any more while you both head off for adventure without me.

"What scares me most, Sherlock? That the two of you are in danger and I need to sharpen my old skills to save you both. What happens then? It's not like an old warhorse lifting it's head and smelling distant battle. If I end up being John's back up - your back up - what happens then? Who might I kill? Or be killed by?" She shook her head in a sort of despair.

"No-one is going to kill you," he hissed.." I won't let them. I have told you. Stay here, close to my side, here in London, and I will protect you from anyone and anything. From Armageddon if I must. You will be safe. Trust me."

"Easy to say, Sherlock. So easy to say." She shook her head and stood up, agitated, stepping over the baby carrier and it's sleeping cargo. "You are no fool. You know how vulnerable I am now, with John and Baby hanging off my gun arm. Silly I never realised that until now, when I am supposed to be a professional. Clearly the ticking of my biological clock drowned out my natural caution. How ironic."

"You are thinking too much. Switch off. Be still."

"I can't. Assessing risk, seeing eventualities, dangers - it is what I do. As much as you." Her voice rose to something like a wail, and he had to force down the inclination to reassure and soothe. That would not help. And it would weaken both of them.

"Just imagine, just for a moment, the situation that haunts me the most. That another Magnusson appears, knowing me, wanting me to kill you. Takes John or Baby - or both - hostage. To make me do that. Kill you."

"Then you kill me," he said calmly. "Might be the only appropriate course of action. The sacrifice of one individual for the survival of the majority. Of your family. No contest. You know I would support you in that. If there was no other escape route for any of us."

"Oh Christ, Sherlock! How can I make that huge logical brain of yours see all the consequences? And if I did that…if….I killed you. How could I live afterwards? With my conscience? John's hatred? Because he would hate me. With Baby labelled the child of a killer? With your brother swearing revenge. Because he would. How could I live past that? Think about that, all the repercussions.

"And you know what? I would rather be dead. I would rather be dead that destroy the people I love the most while saving my own skin. And what frightens me more than even that is…if I go rogue. If my dangerous skills turn into hunger. If I start killing and can't because I miss doing it, Miss the high, miss using my skill set. Miss not being boring.

"Now do you see?"

She had inched closer to him, and now raised her hands to bury them in his shirt front, to shake him as if trying to plant him inside her brain. She turned her face up to his. Eyes red rimmed and raw, mouth a thin line. Beseeching him in a desperation he suddenly saw and understood in bright clarity.

Her fear of losing control of her ability to kill. When everything she stood for now should be life and love and the nurturing of all things human and humane and caring. Everything of loving and cherishing, of marriage and motherhood.

"If the only way to stop me destroying myself and everyone I love is to kill me. Then I want you to kill me. Will you promise me that? Put my mind at rest? Please Sherlock? Please? You know you are the only person I could ever ask this…this ultimate trust."

"That is not going to happen. Your hormones are all over the place because you have just had a baby. Your feelings will calm soon, and you will remember this conversation with embarrassment. Although I will forget it for you. For both of us."

He forced a smile. Softened his expression. Patted her briefly on the arm. But she shook her head, and formed a little fist to thump his chest in a blow that was all sad impatience and frustration.

"Please, Sherlock. Even if you don't mean it. Even if you only say it to humour me. Please agree to kill me. If it is necessary."

"It will never be necessary. I will always be there to save you, to save John. To protect your child. That is what godfathers do. Didn't you know?" He captured her fist and wrapped it in his long lean hand. "I will be there for you. Always. I will never let you down. I will always be at your back. I said all this at your wedding. I have not forgotten, even if you have."

"I haven't forgotten. But please say yes. Please give me that reassurance. And know that if I end up looking down the barrel of your gun - as you looked down the barrel of mine - I will have the same courage as you did."

"You already have it. Silly girl. Courage, I mean."

"How am I to convince you that this is the only way I can feel safe? Not safe for me, safe for John, and Baby and you. Bribe you? Threaten you? Seduce you? Offer to give you John back? To send him away from me and return him to you?"

"And what would that achieve? We are allies because John Hamish Watson is the most important person and life force to us both. That unites us. But that does not mean I put you second because he puts you first. It doesn't work like that."

"So you condemn me to kill myself if needs must? To step off a cliff….."

"That's old hat. I've done that. Don't think John would appreciate the irony…." he tried to make a joke, although the blood was freezing in his veins at her seriousness, her dogged sense of purpose.

"Hang myself?"

"Juvenile. And too simple."

"Step in front of a bullet meant for someone else…."

"Overly melodramatic. And not as easy as it sounds. Just stop this, Mary. I will not let you even consider this. Do you hear me?"

"Please. Just agree with me. You don't even have to say 'yes' so you can't blame yourself for agreeing, not after, not later. Just…sort of….nod."

She clasped his face between her hands. Small hot hands clutching at his face with a fear her words did not completely convey. Her eyes met his, and he saw the depth of horror and fear there. Fear, he realised with a jolt, more of herself than of anyone or anything else.

The biter bit, the tables turned. The assassin planning her own assassination. For the sake of everyone she loved. Not for herself. Not even for herself.

He swallowed the brick lodged in his throat. Looked into her eyes. And she looked back, unblinking.

And he realised he had no way out of this dilemma. That she trusted him more than her husband. Beyond love and life and principle. Beyond life itself. That she needed him to give her peace and absolution. Something within him braced itself and died.

He sighed and looked her square in the face. Nodded . Just a little nod. With painful deliberation.

At that, something flared in her eyes. But she did not say thank you. Simply crushed his hands within hers, reached up on her tiptoes to kiss him softly on the lips.

"You have no idea what you are asking of me," he whispered, as if ashamed.

"Yes I do. I have thought about this a lot. And now you have put my mind at rest," she whispered back. "I owe you so much. I love you, Sherlock Holmes. And I will always - always - watch your back."

"And I yours."

"But we don't tell John."

"We don't tell John," he agreed.

The smile she gave him then turned into a grin, bright and brave and beautiful.

She settled the cavernous bag on her shoulder, and picked up the baby carrier. The child still slept, and knew nothing of the pact between her mother and godfather.

Footsteps went carefully down the stairs into the restaurant and beyond. He listened to her departure and closed down his brain and his Mind Palace. The only way to cope.

 _Dear and trusted friend._

When Angelo Grimaldi appeared ten minutes later Sherlock Holmes sat silently in an armchair, eyes fixed on the floor, immobile and impassive.

His friend poured a generous measure of brandy, put it on the drum table by his elbow and left again without a word.

And so the silence deepened.

.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Authors Notes:**

This chapter turned out to be a classic two hander, This is the conversation they would have had and must have had to put themselves into the calm and relaxed place of affection and mutual understanding they shared, Sherlock and Mary, throughout this entire TV episode. It is pivotal to the entire story arc of the episode and what is to come.

It also sets a tone and reflects a history and mindset only Mary and Sherlock share.

And indicates his actions to come in attempting to solve the puzzle of Tblisi and save her. Because as you will see, Mary's death comes from more than just jumping in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock Holmes..

Stun grenades: otherwise known as flash bangs, sound bombs or flash grenades, were first used by the British SAS in the late 1970's. Non lethal, they give out 7 million candela of light intensity and 17 decibels of sound. A flash bang will make the attacked blind for five seconds, disturb the ear canals and affect balance, deliver a disabling after image. The heat created from a flash bang can set alight flammable material and injure those close to the explosion.

Dead Drop: A dead drop or a dead letter box is a means of holding or passing on information via a secret hiding place. (in contrast to a live drop which involves two or more people meeting and physically exchanging or collecting material. For a dead drop a hidden location is needed, such as a cut out in a wall or a book.

.


	8. Chapter 8

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 8

 _Time. See what's become of me. While I looked around for my possibilities. I was so hard to please…._

 _(Paul Simon)_

His thumbs were flying over the keys, peering at the mobile with fierce concentration. He could see as well as feel his hands shaking as he did so. Which was ironic, because he had first gripped the phone so hard to stop his hands shaking…..and that had only worked until it hadn't.

The message was brief but had taken all his concentration.

 **Baker Street. Tomorrow. 5pm.**

 **Lestrade says he has a belter.**

 _A belter? Really? Did I just write that? Nor concentrating properly. Using only half a brain. Spinning too many plates?_

He looked down at the screen with something approaching disbelief that he had written that. A silly, colloquial turn of vocabulary totally outside his own. Sighed, shook his head in disgust at himself, and quickly followed that with a second text.

 **Mary says it's fine.**

That sounded feeble too. Like apology. Like excuse. But he hoped John Watson was feeling tolerant and was amused, not appalled. Realised who the texts were from. He had not signed either text, he realised belatedly. How informal. How slovenly.

Two texts. Fourteen words. Far too revealing of his state of mind, of the panic steadily winding up his psyche over the past days and weeks and even months, he thought. Unable to crack the Tblisi conundrum. Unable to see round and beyond and through the person he knew as Mary Watson. Unable to find solutions. Answer questions. Bring peace and safety.

 _What is wrong with me?_

 _Does she know how desperate I am becoming? Does her husband? Does anyone? Or are my walls of self control really holding back the floods of panic?_

It had become a bad habit, this, he acknowledged; checking in with Mary Watson before involving her husband on a case. The pretence of this faux affinity was haunting and annoying, so hard to hit the right balance with her. Threatening his confidence in many subtle ways

Considering and consulting with other people before acting was just too hard. Alien. Half belonging to a couple, making the three of them a team, set him off balance and kept him there, a third wheel. And yet this pose was essential - to keep them close to him, and he to them, simply to know what they - what she - was doing. Spying at it's most basic and human and deceitful level.

He knew this man was not him, not how he thought, nor behaved, nor how he usually worked.

Honesty and to hell with the rest was his usual mantra. Clean, clear, forensic sharp. Fast and direct. Assuming this current considerate pose, this false camaraderie, was more than the means justifying the end.

And it was hurting him. He registered that with shame and disbelief. Solving this problem while understanding and protecting Mary Watson, was important to him. But he did not care to examine his reasons.

 _Humanity, is that what it called? Is that what this is? This desire, from the very first, to make John and Mary Watson's relationship work, despite everything? Her past and his colliding, dovetailing their mutual loneliness and need?_

 _And what was the cause of that? Other than him? At least as far as John Watson was concerned._

 _Guilt for having died at Bart's that day, was it? Guilt for saving lives that day in the only way he could - by appearing to die? Guilt at not stopping Moriarty from killing himself? Assuming Moriarty really did kill himself? Or were there two false deaths that day, two resurrections? Two people as well as two bodies that disappeared that day?_

 _Guilt, then, for having friends he wanted to save? Guilt for not confiding in those friends about what he was doing? For the grief he caused them?_

 _Or was it the other guilt? The guilt he now felt for having returned from the dead? For robbing everyone who knew him of their grief and fond memories, to instead suffer the diminished and scarred survivor, older and wiser, wearier and weaker, moving among them again?_

By returning from the dead he had upset the new equilibrium John Watson had found in his life. Dragged the doctor back from the peace he had achieved by moving back into his career, becoming ordinary again, returning to his work as if nothing like Sherlock Holmes had ever happened to him …except while he was away Mary Morstan had happened to him.

So. A complication beyond complication. And now his priority was to involve John Watson just enough to pacify and reassure his friend, but no more. Enough to stop him feeling neglected. Yet leave him behind enough to ensure his friend was now devoting most of his time to his real career, his wife and child. The new life he had chosen when it was less of a choice, more a new direction.

The life he would have had if Sherlock Holmes had not returned from the dead to complicate everything.

So not putting John Watson in the way of danger had become a first principle. Although the events since Magnussen had complicated things, the events in Aalburg even more.

John Watson, saving the life of a stabbed man. John Watson charging into a hotel room and shooting dead the man who had tortured and raped him and was about to push him from a window. John Watson. Shadow and saviour.

 _Dammit. Dammit all to hell._

 _God, this was complicated, this 'all human life is here' business. Not his thing. Not his area. Not his comfort zone. People. Feelings. Being ordinary. Behaving like everyone else. Nuances of noxious normal._

 _Yet nothing about him was normal. He knew that. Did not want normal. And yet….here he was, trying to replicate some sort of normal. Fit and fold himself awkwardly into an airtight box of convention - respectable, responsible. Normal things normal to Mary and John Watson, yet so alien to him._

 _And always niggling at the back of his mind, the risk, the capacity for danger she carried within her. And the necessary complication of her growing ease with him. His growing watchfulness in return._

And the thread through it all - making sure everything seemed fine and easy with Mary. To give the impression of conferring with her on so many dangerous directions that filled his life and had once filled hers. And all while treating her as his equal; when she was in reality anything but.

For his assassin, the assassin he feared, was John Watson's wife. There was no way round that. Another professional. His dark mirror was a black ops killer. Cool and as callous as she needed to be.

For he had seen her eyes, her speed and skill when she shot him in the heart. At that moment the truest essence of herself, a self her husband would never see, never have to acknowledge. But was the person Sherlock Holmes saw every time he closed his eyes, every time he was within touching distance of her….

Guarded he always was, yet using every conversation, every discussion, to draw her out a little, make her views and mindset open to him while letting her feel he was growing to trust her, encouraging her to trust him. Looking for warning signs, falsities, danger.

Giving an appearance of candour to her and to John Watson, the other - but very different - professional in their tight little group; the rest of his 'family' as the Watsons like to term themselves. Meaning all three of them. Three sides of a triangle that was not isosceles.

Mostly he maintained the pretence. Only occasionally his iron self control slipped. And he tasted the lies and false bonhomie afresh like bile in his throat, and he hated himself for it.

 _What in hell was he doing? What in hell was he being these days? Was this pretence becoming his reality? Turning into some sort of family lap dog. something less than himself, something the rest of the world would describe as 'growing up at last.'? Or maturing? Or being more socially acceptable in his ways?_

 _Was that what the rest of the world thought? Biddable now. Keeping the peace. Dull! Just keeping an eye on his little nuclear family from the inside. The only place to get to get all the news, see all the reactions. Keep the plates spinning. So fast now…_

Sleeping less than normal, brain running faster and faster. On one hand, focussed and purposeful, on the other rushing along almost out of self control. The rocket shaking itself apart on the launch pad.

He could feel himself shaking, racing to keep up with himself, always. Always. Every conscious minute. Trying to do too much, running too fast, drawing in too much information, answering too many alerts, processing too manically.

He seemed always to be rushing to an end. To every end, yet not quite arriving. Hoping for blessed oblivion at the very end. Wherever the end was. And when it was. But coming, yes. Coming.

Until then all he had to engage in the chase. Follow the money. See where leads led. Follow them all, chase them all down. However mad or absurd or silly they all seemed. All the normal work, but the special cases too, the slimmest chances that might finally lead him to the Thatcher connection, back to Tblisi. To get to the bottom of the mysterious siege, the arrogant ambassador, the Sologashvilli situation and the fate of the Black Pearl of the Borgias.

Always that little niggle in the back of his mind. Of an error. Of the attack in that Tblisi street market . The kick in the head by a man with eyes like James Moriarty. And what if - whether if - the memory stick that had disappeared from his washbag held any significance.

Oh yes. His brain told him that those photos of Mary Morstan, Mary Watson or whoever she really was held no importance - just engagement photos, relaxed single photos, formal wedding shots, happy smiling photographs without captions or real importance - and yet. Were they an important loss?.

He had glossed it over with Sirius, reluctant to fuel the fire, to further encourage Nico in his obsession with the Black Pearl and it's recovery., To avoid making Mary more important in the tale than she needed to be - especially when he did not understand it all himself. Not yet.

But that tiny voice of instinct still niggled. He could not think how anyone else could find those photographs of importance - but they might, they could.

The very thought brought him out in a sweat. How something so simple, could bring danger and destruction regardless.

He always pushed that thought away. Could not allow that fear any currency. So what were the odds someone with knowledge would see those photos? And link the woman who had been Ros Adams and AGRA and RAGA with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?

 _What a mess! What potential for a bloody mess!_

 **OK. See you at Baker Street tomorrow. Looking forward to it!**

The message pinged straight back. John Watson starting his day. Eager and uncomplicated .

 _Pray to keep him that way._

He put the phone with his wallet carefully in the pile of clothes in his locker and turned away to the pool.

o0o0o

Thirty lengths hard fast crawl. At a time in the morning when the usual pre-breakfast, pre workday swimmers had left and the mid morning swimmers had yet to arrive.

He preferred to swim in the middle of the night, when the lights were off and he was alone in the basement pool of the Adventurer's Club. No one to see how hard to worked to maintain the appearance of effortless strength; how hard he had worked to even begin to return to the most modest level of core fitness after his time in solitary confinement, his ill treatment at the hands of Magnussen acolyte Enrico Baldissi. The sheer bloody effort of the past few months.

Last night he had been tearing round back alleys of Soho and Covent Garden with Lestrade and his team, solving a deposit box robbery scam that had ended in a murder that only looked like suicide, and had led them into too many pubs and private clubs. A dark, exhausting time that ended with hot chocolate and sticky buns at the all night café in a church crypt.

He had left Lestrade much later, with the promise of another, even more baffling case, tomorrow and had felt the sudden need for the calming and concentrated solitude of his club. Brain to change down a gear, transport to attend to.

Now he swam - hard and fast and with full mental and physical concentration - and cleared his brain of all the detritus of the day and the case just solved. It had been a seven in it's own right. Absorbing, but not important as not connected to the cold case he craved leads on. Tblisi and the mystery that was Mary Watson. A puzzle he could not get out of his mind.

 _I don't know. I don't like not knowing._

 _How long and how fast will the plates keep spinning? Until I find out._

 _Find out what?_

Finally stretching out and swimming to the wall, putting his feet to the bottom, he levered himself out of the water and reached for his towel. A foot came out and held the towel down onto the black tiles. He looked up, low on his knees, to see black high boots, size six, with yellow soles

"What a sight for sore eyes," a husky female voice whispered. "But you really don't have to kneel for me."

Tall, dark haired, poised and elegant. Maggie Driscoll. Head of the Magenta Rose Escort Agency and a nebulous part of SIS.

"Would I ever?" he asked seriously. Not wanting to appear pleased to see her. Source of knowledge, colleague, ally; friend of sorts.

"I can but hope," she said, stooping to lift the towel and offer it across his shoulders. . "How are you?"

"Fine. Always fine. You know that."

"Which is why I ask. Because one day you will tell me the truth."

He stood and began to towel himself dry before her without embarrassment, knowing her eyes were on him.

"Stop it."

"You are too thin," she said, examining the angular frame dispassionately. "And still carrying damage, I see. I also hear you are working in hyperdrive, even for you. Get dressed and take breakfast with me."

It was an order, not a request, He nodded, and returned to the changing rooms.

When he emerged fifteen minutes later, showered, shaved and impeccable, she was at a corner table in the west atrium, a high space with a stained glass dome supported by inscrutable atlas telamons. The morning sun sparkled coloured rainbows over the immaculate white napery.

And now she had a friend with her. Another woman as tall and slim and ageless within her early Sixties as she was. Another woman Sherlock Holmes knew. And now he came onto full alert.

So he stood before them both, expressionless, and offered a formal bow.

"Maggie. Elizabeth. How refreshing to see you both and together. Accident or assignation?" he asked. "Probably a silly question."

They both smiled, both gestured him to sit across the table opposite them.

"Always so suspicious," hummed Lady Elizabeth Smallwood, unperturbed.

"With cause," he observed coldly.

"We occasionally breakfast here together around this time of day. Compare notes unobserved. You are the one out of your normal timeframe. Make of that what you will."

"Quite so. My apologies," he demurred.

Breakfast arrived. Salmon scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast for the ladies, a full English for him.

"I took the liberty of ordering for you," Maggie Driscoll replied in answer to his glance and raised eyebrow. "Eat up. You look as if you need it."

For several moments they ate in silence. Sherlock Holmes waited for the opening gambit. And it came eventually from Lady Smallwood.

"How are you adjusting to your new domestic responsibilities? Godfather and general helpmeet?"

… _a little helpmeet….._ his own words about John Watson came back and kicked him in the teeth.

He looked up at her blankly for a moment, unsure whether she was intending to denigrate and devalue or was genuinely enquiring. Her mildly quizzical expression did not change however, so he gave her the benefit of the doubt.

"All new experiences are learning opportunities. They do not impact upon the work."

"They impact upon Watson's work and his involvement. And Mrs Watson is an added pressure," she commented blandly.

" I choose not to include Dr Watson in the work to the same degree as before; although I am, in fact, utilising his skills in a new case I shall be addressing for Lestrade tomorrow. As for Mrs Watson….." he shrugged. "We have an understanding."

"That's nice," she added. "An understanding with the black op, is that, or the new mummy?"

He frowned. Even though his conversation with Mary has unsettled him, that comment did not sound right so did not merit a reply. His turn to serve.

"The events in Tblisi remain an unsolved cold case for MI6. Anything you can tell me about that?"

"I don't know anything new or pertinent," she replied evenly. "Except even after all this time the Black Pearl Of The Borgia's remains on Interpol's top ten of missing artefacts."

"Because the situation is still sensitive as far as Great Britain and Georgia are concerned?

"You may feel that. I cannot possibly comment."

"Hardly helpful."

This time she simply returned silently to her breakfast.

"Did either of you know Mary Watson - under whatever name, whatever role - before she appeared in connection with John Watson?" he asked.

Maggie Driscoll instantly shook her head.

"Never on my radar. Not attractive enough. Even if she had been, she would not have passed my level of background check."

"Understood. What about you?"

He turned to Lady Smallwood.

"Not the same situation. Ability and success rate are all that is needed to assess a gun for hire."

"Hmn. Just so." he paused with a forkful of egg and bacon halfway to his mouth. "Anything you can tell me about the ambassador at the time, Julia Tregarron? Did you know her?"

"She was considered charming and efficient. Ambitious. A clever pair of hands."

"Clever rather than safe? Was she liked?"

Elizabeth Smallwood offered a little shrug. "Something of a leading question. Not speaking ill of the dead and all that."

"You actually knew her?"

"Not personally; we exchanged some paperwork via my secretary and brushed shoulders at a few social events, nothing more. "

"But?"

"Not my sort of person. Too feminine in the feminine wiles stakes, if you get my drift. A point scorer. A bit too needy. She met her husband at university - Durham - and always gave the vague impression she felt she was more intelligent and better placed than him. Which is never attractive."

"Tell me about him?"

"Don't know much. Hus name was Colin Travers - she did not take his name when they married. He was a history and humanities lecturer at Birkbeck. Her career path was on a rise, so came first, while his was settled, so he stayed at home and brought up their two girls on a daily basis. They were all on vacation with her in Tblisi when the siege started; normal practise to spend their holidays with her, wherever she was posted. Nothing unusual in them being there.

"Seemed a nice chap by all accounts. No-one ever had a bad word about him. Much missed at the university by peers and students alike."

"I am told the arts exhibition at the embassy was her idea."

"Indeed? She liked Georgia, and wanted to make a good impression. Understandable. Success on her first Silk Road posting would take her faster and deeper along the career route, towards a prestige posting such as Moscow."

"Yes, I see." He ate and thought. "Why did investigation after the siege not fully analyse or explain what happened?"

"Too many people involved were killed for a proper debriefing, I suspect. It was difficult to put eyes and ears inside the siege itself. Not enough first hand accounting. Insufficient data. The file still remains shockingly empty."

"Even for you? Now you know of Morstan's survival, would you consider debriefing her?"

"I might. If I felt I could trust her testimony."

"You think she may be a traitor?"

"Let's just say she was a freelance on a one-off contract. Not an employee. So she may feel that telling - admitting - her truth may jeopardise her current position. Expose her past. Endanger her future."

"Cynical, even for you," he observed. Pulled a breath. Added: "You mistrust her, you mistrust me."

He heard the words come out of his mouth, and saw both women sit a little straighter, look at him a little harder.

"You may find it advisable to revise that statement." Lady Elizabeth Smallwood at her ice blonde best.

"Family," he rasped.

"Family is Mycroft. Not John Watson and his….appendages," she pointed out.

He met her eyes: arctic grey to icy blue. Neither blinked nor yielded.

"Not your problem" he said. "Nor your place to comment."

"It is always my place to comment." She paused. "William." Snapped out his name through a curl of her lip as if it was an insult. And felt satisfaction in noting a tiny movement of recoil within him.

Using his childhood name as a lever against him, reminding him she knew precisely why he no longer used it, reflecting on his past as some sort of analysis, as if a criticism he would read as insult.

"Low blow," he commented, as if disconnected from himself and the conversation.

"It is my job to use any tool, any blow, to achieve the right result."

"On me? How dare you. After all I…."

"Time is now. William. Wake up and smell the coffee before what is right in front of you, and what you seem to refuse to see, destroys you."

"Like it did before, you mean?" He quirked a smile that had no humour in it. "She has killed me before. And I have died a thousand deaths you know nothing about. Do not attempt to threaten me."

"So you finally admit Mary Morstan shot and killed you in Magnussen's penthouse? Is that statement one we can process to bring formal charges against her?"

"I told you before. I have no memory of being shot. I made that formal statement in hospital. Nothing has changed."

"You are a fool, William."

"No. I am a freak and a high functioning sociopath, Lady Smallwood. Except when it suits you to believe otherwise."

He put down his cutlery and slowly stood.

"Do not try to threaten me. Threats never work on me, for you have no levers. And remember I have been formally pardoned. My slate is clean."

"There is not such thing. As you are well aware."

"Do not threaten me," he repeated. "Nor those you perceive as close to me."

"Don't you think your devotion to Dr Watson has damaged you enough? Damaged him? That it is now high time to cut your ties to your friend and his wife?"

"And wouldn't you just love that? So you could make me your vassal and mindless tool. You really think I am such an idiot?"

"Please! Both of you! Stop throwing rocks at each other!"

Maggie Driscoll put out a hand towards each of them, her voice low.

"Stop this before you hurt each other. Both of you back down. Declare a draw. We don't need this."

Sherlock Holmes reached out. Lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles.

"I did not start this, Maggie. But I will finish it." He smiled at her then. A smile of rare sweetness; not the manic grin he normally hid behind. "Thank you for my breakfast."

And he turned and walked away without speaking to Elizabeth Smallwood. The voice he wanted to hear did not call him back.

o0o0o

A strange day just got stranger, he thought, as he stood and shakily clutched the rail of the travelling cot. Looked down at the sleeping baby in his sitting room.

 _How the fuck had that happened? How?_

They had barrelled into the flat without even a preliminary telephone call: Mary clutching the baby in her carrier, John following behind with the little duffle of baby supplies, a cloth bag that clanked _(Tins? Jars? Food? Oh. Not a good deduction…..)_ something of canvas and tubular structure that looked vaguely like a folded deckchair. Both looking harassed.

He had only been back from The Adventurer's Club for a couple of hours. Mid morning found him trawling through six year old cold case files from Lestrade. Occupying his time usefully; unable to stop hunting down cases, chasing the chaos theory, following the track of a single whisper about Thatcher and Tblisi and trying to make sense of it. Trying to find links and connections from that time.

He was sitting at the dining table that doubled as a desk between the sitting room windows. And, concentrating on his work, was slow to look up and register the tension they brought into the room with them.

"What?" he muttered, distracted by his conversation with Maggie and Elizabeth, and irritable by his continued lack of results, hauling himself back to the Watsons and the present with an effort.

Mary Watson looked up at him apologetically, put down the baby carrier. The child with her father's eyes and her mother's nose, looked serenely at him and smiled.

He resisted the impulse to smile back, reflecting again how she had never given any impression of fearing him, almost as if she trusted hin from birth. Which was a thought he found as unsettling as the quiet, almost thoughtful way she always looked at him.

 _Stupid child_.

"Family emergency," John Watson said from behind his wife, dropping his burdens in the doorway. "Harry has been off on a blinder. Alcohol poisoning. We need to fetch her from hospital, settle her back into her flat. She's on her own again, no resident girlfriend. Only us. But we can't take Rosie with us to do that."

He frowned, irritated. "Why not dump her on Molly? Hudders? Why me?"

He watched them both flinch when he said 'dump.' But it was true. He wasn't going to deny that. Or conceal his reluctance to help behind social politeness and generosity of spirit.

"Couldn't get hold of any of them. You are the last resort. But why not you, God-Daddy?"

"I'm not…I can't…."

"'Course you can. Dead easy. Even I can do it," John Watson said with a grin. Reading the panic in his friend's eyes. Amused by that, not disturbed. Took a step closer to breathe quiet words into his ear.

"Seriously, Sherlock. All these weeks since she's been born. You've avoided seeing her, touching her. Relating to her. Your god-daughter. A bit upsetting, you know? Still….We wouldn't dump her on you - as you so charmingly put it - if it wasn't an emergency. But we can hardly take her with us while we sort out my bloody sister. You must see that? And we'll be as quick as we can….."

The little pat on the arm was either supportive or patronising, depending upon your point of view. Sherlock Holmes looked down at it without allowing himself to register anything at all.

"I…..I don't….I don't know how to do this." _Don't they understand that? Or how exposing it is to admit this lack within himself? How much it hurts to force the words past his temper and his teeth?_ "You can't possibly trust me with her."

He frowned. He heard the whine in his voice. _So;_ _could they? Hear it? Or did they just ignore it? Read his attitude as some sort of pathetic pose, typical pseudo cynicism? Just what they would expect. Coming from him? That he didn't mean it really?_

The higher pitch of a pathetic sort of very human fear. A fear he denied as much as despised. Of failure. Of giving succour. Of love.

"We trust you with our own lives, you idiot," Mary Watson took his elbow and shook it. "So we're certainly going to trust your with our daughter. Stands to reason." She grinned up at him, unperturbed. " And if you don't know how to look after one little baby, well, that's your fault."

There was both steel and truth behind her words, spoken however lightly.

"But I…."

"Anything you don't know how to do or can't work out, look it up on YouTube. You're the clever one in the room," she said.

And then they were gone.

The silencer surrounded him. Him and the child.

He stood where he was, stranded in the middle of his own sitting room, and pulled a hard tremulous breath, feeling as if he had walked into a wall. With no idea how he was going to do this. Or why anyone would think he could and should handle this enormous little thing.

His first impulse was to walk out of the room. Go to Bart's, or the Yard, or the park. Tesco's even. Anywhere to not have to share the room with this tiny interloper of such huge presence. But he knew, even as the panic filled his mind, that he could not do that. This unwelcome responsibility was all about being an adult. Being responsible. Mature. _Hateful!_

He finally steeled himself to look in her direction, then to see, with some sense of anticlimax, that she was lying quietly asleep in the travel cot her father had unfolded with a careless flick of the wrist, her eyes closed.

The chubby pale pinkness of the baby was tucked into a white lace pillow and blankets. Golden lashes lay on velvety cheeks, cherubic lips curved in a soft half smile. Fine golden curls. Peacefulness in sleep and the distinctive soft smell of talcum powder.

He blew out a strained breath, refused to allow her vulnerability to affect him, to let himself smile down at her, to allow the natural human desire to care and protect seep into his consciousness. Refused to be fond. Because if he did he knew it could swamp and destroy him.

So he turned his back. Picked up his telephone. Began yet again his search for the ripples in the ether that would lead him towards Tblisi, to the secrets of the siege. To the mystery of Julia Tregannon, of RAGA, of the Black Pearl of The Borgia's. To continue his single minded task of spinning more plates, spinning them higher and faster until they flew to his target.

He managed to put her out of his mind for an hour. Until she started to fidget in a sort of half wakefulness and to grizzle a little as she surfaced; a low keening of breath that for all it's quietness hurt his ears and burned into his brain.

For twenty minutes he managed to ignore the sound, which grew steadily louder, more regular irregular. But then he had to leap from his chair, cross the room in four rapid strides, look down at her.

Eyes a disconcerting blue and so like her father's looked up at him. She had kicked away the blankets, was flailing tiny fists, wrinkling her face in displeasure and discomfort.

"Shut up, Watson. You parents will be back soon."

She ignored his order. But having caught his attention she now began to wail in earnest. Perplexed, he frowned at her, looked round wildly, took a pink dummy out of the top of the bag and waved it vaguely in front of her nose. Popped it between her lips.

There was silence instantly. Satisfied, he turned away. Listened for the space of four hard sucking breaths before the dummy was spat out and the wailing began again in earnest. Her face was turning red.

He turned back to the child with an annoyed, helpless click of his tongue. Made a deduction.

"Hungry?" he asked.

She kicked the blankets further down her chubby pale legs and waved her fists in his direction. He pulled back, out of her reach and eyeline. Sighed in frustration.

A yellow post-it note in John Watson's rounded and backwards leaning script said simply: "Heat a jar in a dish of hot water. You've seen this done!" A ready made bottle of formula bore a similar legend.

So he boiled the kettle, put out dishes and a spoon, rummaged in the bag for a bib and flannel, all to the background sound of the wails rising louder and faster.

For a moment, battening down frustration, he stood over the travel cot and hovered. His hands waved ineffectually as he tried to work out the best way to pick up a baby and attend to her needs.

 _Concentrate! It is only a baby! You have seen this done! But did you really pay any attention before? Did you notice enough? Did you even bother to look?_

Was overwhelmed by a deep and creeping sense of ineptitude and inadequacy, a rush of panic, a strong desire to just turn and run. Too much to process, to handle.

He strode over to the door, onto the landing, leant over the banisters and shouted for Mrs Hudson. Shouted three times, cursing as well as calling. But no reply.

 _If she had gone out to do something as unimportant as shopping or the dentist he would commit murder…!_

Sighing angrily and rolling his eyes he reluctantly returned to the baby. Took a deep breath, steeled himself and reached out to lift the child out of the cot and up into mid air. Holding her aloft and away, straight out from his body as if she was some contagious medical sample.

Feeling insecure, the baby kicked and screamed, puffed up her face. His own face scrunched in impotent sympathy. Pushing down his panic and trying to push down hers, he deliberately dropped his shoulders and breathed slowly.

Some instinct he did not want, nor realise he had, drew her into his body, settled her head against his chest and cradled her to him. A warm, rather damp little bundle of tyranny.

"Shush, baby," he heard himself say, not understanding why he spoke two words that have never, to his knowledge, ever passed his lips before. And in a tone he did not recognise as his own.

As carefully and fearfully as if he trying to defuse a bomb, he carried Rosamund Mary Watson across the sitting room, sat down in a kitchen chair, settled her in the crook of one arm and reached for the warmed chicken and vegetable puree.

The following twenty minutes were a test of his courage and determination as he discovered that feeding a baby required concentration, coordination, commitment and four hands to simultaneously hold and reach and feed and wipe.

He was not impressed by his baby feeding skills, and neither was the baby in question. And yet they got through it.

He was brusque. Angry with himself for making such a fool of himself. Glad there was no-one but the baby watching; even though she would not tell, she could judge. So incapable, he chided himself, when this was a job millions of people undertook every day, with every appearance of ease and simplicity. But somehow they struggled through, the man and the baby, in their mutual need to succeed. And if he was covered in as much food as the tiny child at the end of it all, was as exhausted and stressed as she was, he still counted that as something of a success, all in all.

The damp squirming body and the smell of urine made him realise with a distasteful curl of his lip that she needed her nappy changing. He achieved that reluctant task after scrabbling around in the bag one handed to find what he needed.

He closed his mind to what he was doing as the only way he could cope with it. Feeling even more inadequate and useless, lost and alone. Terrified of hurting the child, terrified of even touching her tiny form.

She was so little, so frail, next to him. So simple in her demands, yet so urgent in their need. Her body was too small, his hands too big, too insensitive, to deliver nourishment and comfort, he could feel it. And he had no idea how to communicate with this scrap of humanity.

He wanted someone else to come and take over and scoop the baby out of his arms. He wanted no-one to come and see just how useless he was, how pathetic. How utterly inadequate.

 _Onwards into the valley of death….._

A bath towel was folded on the floor and the baby laid down upon it as he removed the dirty disposable nappy, bagged and binned it. Watched her lie and happily kick with relief at the freedom of movement. Remembered suddenly and with a shock of memory that he had been the first person she had ever seen, born in the back of the car and had dropped - wetter, smellier, even dirtier than she was now - into his hands.

The emotion he had felt then had been overwhelming. And he had determined not to feel like that, as intensely as that, as human as that, ever again. So he closed his mind to her, avoided her eyes, took control of his hands and his mental processes, as he wiped and washed, dried and powdered. Put a clean nappy in place and straightened her clothes.

For a brief moment he sat back on his haunches and watched her kick. Fed, refreshed, clean and comfortable again.

He was drained and exhausted by the experience, he realised. Emptied of mental and physical strength. And yet this very ordinary process looked easy when someone else did it! If they had been watching, Mycroft and Moriarty would have thought his performance hilarious and demeaning. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson would have been supportive but amused, painfully helpful. Neither thought path reassured.

Hands on thighs, head bent while he struggled to breathe and regain his composure, he sucked in a deep breath and dashed away the tears of nervous reaction from his lashes.

Yet a little curl of triumph warmed and filled his heart, despite himself. He had done it. Achieved a great feat. Attended to the needs of a baby.

But the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it; tissues and debris and flicks of food everywhere, on walls and floor, table and chairs, and all over his dove grey shirt, fresh on that morning.

 _Always get something wrong…._

Beyond speech, he lifted the child. She burped and they wrinkled their noses at each other in instinctive response. He thought for a moment she was going to laugh at him, at her own cleverness, and fiercely closed off that fanciful thought. Scowled at himself and hastily returned her to the cot. Laid her on her side and tucked the covers around her. One tiny hand reached out and grasped his thumb, and he froze.

Such a tiny hand, with perfect tiny nails. A devil grip.

 _Mary Watson. Flying baby nail scissors. God almighty, why remember that just now? It did not help!_

"Let go, Watson," he commanded softly, tugged. Took the tiny fluffy teddy from the provisions bag and offered that into her hand instead. Drew a shaky breath as she was distracted, and retreated into the kitchen to clear up the disaster area, then into the bathroom to wash chicken dinner from his face and hair and change his shirt.

He smelt of baby, of macerated food and urine. He washed, and felt no better for the fresh cleanliness _._

 _That was a disaster. I am useless. I cannot do any form of real life. Not that I want to…..but if I could at least cope…instead of being such a failure…._

He combed his hair and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Sea storm eyes, pale and a little battered, looked back at him. Today had not been one of his best days.

Gathering his courage, he returned to the sitting room. Picked up his phone again. Thought for a moment.

 **Progress? SH**

John Watson would be amused by such a bald, needy text, but he no longer cared. He wanted them back here to collect their child, and he wanted them here now! But there was no way he was going to ask or to plead. Just…chivvy. A little bit.

Flung the phone down in self disgust and crossed back to the cot. To see Baby Watson had settled and gone back to sleep with the teddy scrunched under her cheek. He did not dare pull it free and disturb her by trying to make her more comfortable.

 _What am I doing? Why is this pathetic exercise in rank humanity so hard to do?_ _Too much to process. I do not want to do this. I never have. Why do I berate myself for this inadequacy? When it was not my choice? And why do I even care?_

Looked down and found himself clutching the rail surrounding the top of the cot. Shaking quietly from a release of tension he did not even realise had possessed him. Wondered how young inexperienced parents did this several times a day. For years. How they were expected to cope.

Realised he would prefer his usual life of theft and threat, of rape or murder or robbery with violence. Something adult and violent, clear and hard and understood. Something he related to and was at least capable of dealing with.

Not this. Caring and nurturing and protecting. He was beyond all hope of being that grown up and becoming a model of humanity himself. He needed no reminder of his failings. Not like this, with this child of his family of choice revealing all his weaknesses, inabilities and insecurities.

For a moment he was swamped with despair. Recognising that in embracing the ordinary and the everyday and the normal, John Watson was a more mature man, a better man, than he would ever be. And he shrank away from the very thought and tried to stop trembling.

And then his head snapped up on the alert and the trembling stopped.

Footsteps on the stairs. Not John Watson or Mycroft, not even Lestrade. A woman. In court shoes.

He turned, expecting - hoping - to see Mary Watson. Coming either to his rescue or to Rosamund Mary's.

Instead the woman that appeared in the doorway was tall and slender. Poised within a watchful elegance Mary Watson could never attain. Beautiful strong features verging on handsome. Long thick jet black hair and the deepest brown eyes, head carriage and set of shoulders speaking of maturity and self confidence.

She was dressed in a grey business suit with black shirt and bag, no adornment. She looked efficient, professional, capable and eye catching. Pausing in the doorway she glanced assessingly at the cot and slowly back to him, and asked calmly, almost teasingly:

"Is that yours?"

"Of course not !" He tried not to splutter, may have failed. "And it's a 'she', not a 'that'."

"My apologies. But if it's not yours, what is it doing here?"

"I'm baby sitting."

She laughed at that, and relaxed suddenly.

"That is something impossible to imagine!" she said. Added: "Something I think I am privileged to see. No?"

Put her briefcase down on the leather sofa and crossed the room towards him.

"Hello, Sherlock. Are you going to offer me coffee, perhaps? Or even say hello?"

"Hello," he returned automatically. "What are you doing here, Nia? Have you come for me? Does Nico need me? Something from me?"

She smiled, reached out a hand he did not take.

"You worry for him?" she asked, ignoring the snub. "That is kind. But no. I am here in London for a sale of Middle Eastern Art at Sotheby's tomorrow. Just thought I would call in and see you. See how you are."

"I am fine," he responded. Frowned. "But before you ask - I have not yet found his Black Pearl."

"Not yet. But you will."

Her eyes burned into his with a level, assessing look.

"Kind of you to offer confidence in me."

"Not hard," she said. Stepped forward, put her hands lightly onto his shoulders, leaned in. Whispered a soft kiss onto his lips in greeting and did not physically react to his lack of reaction. Just stayed close and smiled into his eyes.

"Hello, Sherlock," she repeated.

He frowned at her. Asked the question that had piqued him since the last conversation with his brother.

"Why did he not tell me about his wife? That he lost her in the siege? He told me the siege had special meaning for him, but he did not elaborate. Why didn't he tell me about her?"

She kept her hands on his shoulders and stayed close to him. He resisted the temptation to step back and withdraw, felt the warmth of her body, smelt her perfume. Not _Clair de la Lune,_ he breathed in with relief. Creed's _Love I n White;_ orange top notes with magnolia and hyacinth and a touch of daffodil. Individual and distinctive.

Her eyes dropped.

"It is not for me to be my brother's mouthpiece. Except to say that he did not want to pressure you," she answered softly. "Appeal to your better nature, to emotion. He recognised you are not swayed by emotion. He did not want to demean himself by demeaning you in that way."

"Irrelevant. I expect better of him. I need the facts. His wife's death is a fact. And the events around it. May be important. May have a bearing."

"Perhaps so."

"No perhaps about it. He may not want sympathy or even my pity, but he should know facts surrounding his wife's death may have bearing on events. Help me find answers."

" His loss remains raw. Not everyone has your level of detachment."

"Which is why most people call me a freak."

"They are fools. Don't they see what I see? A good man trying his best to solve a problem six years unsolved?"

"Clearly not."

" Doesn't that bother you? To always be so misunderstood?"

An indifferent shrug in reply.

He moved to turn away, but her hands remained firm on his shoulders.

"You poor boy. Has it always been like this for you?"

"None of your business."

"That's a 'yes' then. How do you cope with it?"

"I don't cope. I prefer it."

"I don't believe that. What does your girlfriend say?"

"Don't have one."

"Really?" he watched her revise her assessment of him. Too tired and bored to correct her. "Boyfriend, then?"

"Not one of those either."

"Oh, Sherlock!" One hand shifted from grasping his shoulder to punching it softly. "Please don't tell me you actually believe that old fashioned Victorian ascetic thing? That you deny your human needs, subjugate your feelings and impulses to strengthen your mind and your self control? Sexual restraint, self denial, isolation. Deny the needs of your heart and your body for a greater good? "

"I have it on good authority that I don't have a heart."

"Rubbish! Without a heart why do the job you do? Bringing justice, righting wrongs. Stopping criminals. Is that not to do with having a heart bigger than most, not smaller?"

Her dark eyes peering into his were unblinking and unapologetic. It threatened to unsettle him and they both knew it.

"Sentimental," he sneered. "Not that at all. Just me being the cleverest person in the room."

"Oh? Just the room?"

She grinned at him. Laughed when she saw his brows draw together. Realised with a sudden jolt that he did not see the joke. Caught her breath at the dark look he shot her

"Don't tease me."

There was nothing in his voice, nothing in his eyes. Just three words that chilled.

She looked at him and reassessed.

"I'm sorry. I did not mean my little joke cruelly. I had not realised…..that is all you know."

He looked, did not blink, did not allow or accept the apology, just ignored it.

"I know I need to talk to your brother again."

"You will. " Her voice was confident. "He likes you. I like you."

"Being liked is irrelevant. My function is to solve the mystery."

"At the moment your function is to look after the baby."

"Don't tease me." He blinked finally, several times, distracted. "You are very different away from Nico. An individual, more assertive. Or was your pretence of being a passive member of his staff just a ploy?"

"Not a ploy, exactly. My brother and I were being careful. We did not know you, yet have heard so much about you. Wondered why you had been brought in after all this time. Did not know then what you are."

"What are you doing here? In my flat?""

"There is no-one else in London I know. I thought you might join me for dinner? Save me from a lonely evening?"

"As you can see, I am otherwise engaged."

"We could order a takeaway while you babysit. Is not fish and chips in newspaper the usual English takeaway meal of choice?"

"What do you really want, Nia?"

"A very natural thing, Sherlock. Woman to man. To get to know you better. As simple as that."

"There is nothing to know. You waste your time."

She did not step away from him or drop her hands. Smiled softly back at the harsh words, curved one hand along his shoulder and up onto his jaw.

"Our older brothers have been close friends for years. We have known about you for years. Could never decide if Mycroft's stories about you were the boastful exaggerations of a proud brother or a public relations myth."

"My brother has never been proud of me, and I have no time for the media."

"You are a hard man."

She bumped her knuckles on his jaw to take any sting from her words. He did not react nor meet her eyes. Simply stood.

"My brother says you are more of an enigma than your brother. Because you are braver, and do not deny your flaws. But he only realised how special you are when you put on his work clothes and walked out into the night. When he saw your history on your skin."

"Romantic twaddle. Scars are only a record of one's mistakes."

"Or of one's courage, perhaps?"

The hand on his jaw drifted down onto his chest. Fingers teasing the placket of his shirt over his heart.

She looked up at him, asking for permission. He remained passive, which told her nothing in words or movement. So fingers gently probed. Inside the shirt, onto his smooth, cool skin. Found the puckered shiny mark there and gasped.

"Satisfied, now? Now you have found the place where my heart should be?"

Her head went up in a sort of shock even as she felt his heart beating under his skin, through her fingertips, as if in contradiction of his words. Even as she felt his muscles tensing.

This building was his home. And he knew every sound it made.

So he heard the black front door opening and closing quietly, then footsteps, soft, hurrying footsteps. Before she did.

To her surprise he tucked his head into the curve of her neck and brought his hands up from nowhere to encircle her waist. Eased her close in to his body, gently to one side, so her back was to the doorway.

"Follow my lead," he husked into her ear; at that moment she did not understand him. And then she suddenly did.

A voice from behind her gasped.

"Oh! Sorry! Sorry to interrupt….." the voice trailed away for a moment. Then a brighter "Oh! So you made up….."

The vision of Sherlock Holmes standing in the centre of his sitting room, looking across at her with piercing concentration, his arms around a tall and dark haired woman, would be enough to stop anyone in their tracks. It stopped Mary Watson.

"Not Janine," he rapped out low.

And she took the hand from across her mouth and let all the air trapped in her surprised lungs leech away.

The woman in his arms turned slowly to face their visitor, calm and confident, standing unashamed within the curve of Sherlock Holmes' arms.

Then Mary Watson could see that this woman was slimmer and broader in the shoulder than Janine Hawkins, her friend who had been the chief bridesmaid at her wedding, Charles Augustus Magnussen's personal assistant, and Sherlock Holmes' almost-fiancee. Finer features than Janine, a flawless olive complexion, amber eyes. A mouth as full and lush as Sherlock Holmes' own.

A woman who also had one hand possessively on his shoulder, the other inside his black shirt. Delicately touching the bullet hole scar she herself had put there. And that realisation punched all the air and confidence from within her.

What was almost worse, she realised the motionless man and the smiling woman both saw her reaction, read it for what it was. Shock and hurt and something approaching panic.

Mary Watson's eyes flickered to the travel cot, where all was still and silent. Part of her brain was reassured yet amazed he had cared for her child without crisis or harm.

Turned her eyes back to the centre of the room.

"Mary….." after too long a silence Sherlock Holmes spoke. "Allow me to introduce you to…"

Dr Ania Ingorkva," the woman said. "Not a medical doctor like your husband. Merely fine art and mediaeval culture."

"You know who I am?"

"But naturally! Any friend of Sherlock's is a friend of mine." She smiled. It looked open hearted and utterly genuine. "But I am sure you are here to take your child home now."

"Yes. Sorry to interrupt….." she didn't know how to finish the sentence, and the other woman simply continued to smile.

"You interrupt nothing," Sherlock Holmes was stern. "Dr Ingorkva …." he gave a puzzled little frown at the name.

"My husband's name. Obviously. Recognisable. A cousin several times removed of the famous historian and activist."

He ignored the explanation.

"Doctor Ingorkva is just…staying."

In five long strides he moved away from her touch and was at the side of the cot. Joining Mary Watson as they both looked down upon her baby.

"You have fed her. Changed her nappy. And she has gone back to sleep." Naked surprise in her voice

"Of course."

"I'm….sorry," she stuttered, taken aback. "I came as quickly as I could. John is staying with Harry for the night. Until her support team of friends get themselves organised to take turns to sit with her. Just for the first few days of her recovery. She'll be OK."

"Jolly good."

The neutral social reply showed he did not care, and possibly had not even heard. She shot a look at him as he watched the baby. Not her.

"You managed to feed and change her? Really?"

"Of course. Difficulty factor much overrated."

He grinned at her. His manic, all concealing grin

"I'm….glad. I am so pleased you have spent time with your goddaughter. John will be thrilled. Thank you so much."

"Stop gushing. It won't happen again."

He motioned to her to lift the baby so he could collapse the folding cot. And she stood there blankly in front of him, holding her child, just looking at him, unable to understand the anger he was trying not to exhibit.

"Sherlock, wait. Look at me."

Ungainly, with the baby in her arms, she stretched the fingers of one hand out to brush his wrist.

"I thought we were friends. I thought we had made our peace. I thought….."

"Oh, please don't attempt to impress me by trying to prove you can think. Just take your child home, Mary."

"She has a name. It's Rosie."

"Think I knew that." He folded and picked up the cot. "Put her into the carrier. We'll take your things downstairs and get you a taxi."

He was down the stairs like a tempest with the cot and baggage before she even had Rosie buckled into the carrier.

"Good to meet you Ania. Sorry it was such a fleeting visit….."

"Don't apologise."

And then she was clattering down the stairs in his wake, across the pavement and in to the cab that had appeared like magic - as usual - to Sherlock Holmes' summons.

He helped her into the back seat with her precious cargo, arranged the bags of supplies at her feet.

"Thank you," she said as he pulled back out of the taxi to close the door.

"Nothing to thank me for. But don't bring her here like this again. Do you hear me, Mary? "

She looked up at him, puzzled and oddly hurt.

"What's the matter? What aren't you telling me?"

"Absolutely nothing except I don't want you, or her, here. Not again.."

She looked up at him with the cold professional assessment she never allowed her husband to see.

"What's happened? What aren't you telling me?" In the cold unemotional voice she never normally allowed herself to use, nowadays.

"Such a suspicious nature, Mary. Stop thinking everyone is as tricksy as you."

"Huh! Fine one to talk!"

"Yes. I am. And don't you forget it."

He leaned back in so only she could hear his words.

"I am doing my best to keep you safe. You and yours. Do not question or doubt me. Push me."

He slammed the door and watched as the taxi pulled away. He ignored her pale, stricken face.

Turned back to 221B and to face the woman he had thought was just a girl called Nia. But who was something more than that.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

Atlas telamons: bearded muscular Atlas figures supporting piers and floord and collonades upon their heads and shoulders. Feature in classical Greek and European architecture. Female versions are caryatids.

Maggie Driscoll (established OC) Mother of Ellie Driscoll, the Lord Jack Smallwood blackmail lever from _His Last Vow_ TV episode and _Things We Lost In The Flames_ extension story. Also head of Mageta Rose organisation linked to MI5 and 6.

Birkbeck College. Part of the University of London, established in 1823 as The London Mechanics Institute as founded by Sir George Birkbeck. Offers over 200 different courses, mainly by part time evening study.

Silk Road: An ancient network of world trade routes linking Eastern and Western cultures and nations. Trading silk began in the Hang Dynasty, and has continued for centuries, mainly with silk, jade plague and spices. Still processing, to all intents and purposes, mainly currently trafficking drugs and people.

William Sherlock Scott Holmes: As revealed in _His Last Vow_ but established outside canon. The history of how William became Sherlock is told in _The Magnussen Legacy._

Pavle Ingorkva (1893-1983) One of the founders of the Union of Georgian Writers. Lifelong fighter for Georgian independence from Russian rule. Author, editor, historian, philologist, and public benefactor. Head of Manuscripts at the Georgian State Museum and a renowned expert in the classic mediaeval poem _The Knight In The Panther's Skin,_

.


	9. Chapter 9

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 9

 _Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see._

 _(Rene Magritte)_

She was not in the sitting room, but in the kitchen making tea. It all looked so calm and domestic his explosive run back up the stairs came to a juddering halt in the doorway.

"One sugar or two in tea? I forget," she said, half turning to him as she spooned leaves into the Brown Betty teapot.

"What? Oh. One. Thank you."

"Are you OK? You seem a bit flustered."

"Flustered? No. Well. Suppose….." he tugged at his hair and tried to get his brain back under control.

The Georgian woman turned properly then and gave him her full attention.

"She frightens you. Why does she frighten you?"

He ignored the question. Concentrated.

"How did you recognise her? How do you know her?"

"Who? The wife of your Doctor Watson?"

"Of course the wife of Doctor Watson! What else would you call her?"

"Calm down. Be calm."

She took three steps across the kitchen to him, put her hands on his forearms, pushed him gently into a chair at the table.

"Mary, I suppose. Is that her name now? I know her as Ro Adams. But that, I think, was just her professional name at that time. One of too many. Nicely anonymous."

"Yes."

"I saw her, with the three men in her team, when they arrived at the siege. She will not have noticed me. Did not see her in action, nor in the aftermath. Later only. In photographs."

"Hilary Weatherstone showed me the photographs. I did not see her in any of them."

"But she….." Nia paused, thought. "Yes. In photographs. Lying on the floor in the corridor. Looking quite dead.

" No. If I had seen her I would have recognised her."

"Then perhaps Hilary did not show you everything. You were with Nico when you saw Hilary, yes? He may have wanted to be discreet, to shield Nico from the pain, of seeing photographs of his dead Tamora. Yes. I think he would do that. Nico loved her very much."

"God almighty! How do people expect me to solve this thing when they hide information from me?"

Irritated, distracted, he absentmindedly pulled a biscuit tin from a cupboard and put it in the centre f the table, removing the lid.

"Ginger biscuits," he informed distractedly. "My landlady makes them."

There was a small silence, and she put a mug of tea between his loosely clasped hands clenched on the tabletop.

"Drink. Relax."

He ignored the instruction, mind elsewhere.

"Why was there never a proper tally of who died? How could she have escaped alive when everyone thought she was dead?"

Nia sighed. Shrugged.

"Why not ask her?" she asked mildly.

"We have spoken a little about it. As yet I do not want to push her. Have her know I am actively investigating, Would be stupid."

The eye roll and frustrated huff of breath goaded her to reply.

"The whole situation was chaos, more chaos than you could imagine. The original attack happened in the final stages of setting up the exhibition. So many people milling around - curators, functionaries, cleaners, family members, staff, other interested parties, guests. Security was understandably lax. We never had proper numbers from the start, neither hostages nor hostage takers.

"No-one was ever going to cooperate on that! There were hostages in other rooms, never seen. No cooperation from either side to clarify or help resolve the situation. Too much bad feeling, internal conflict within the hostage takers. Embassy staff…."

"Tregarron, you mean? Obstinate?"

"Oh yes. To complicate matters, other nations were grinding their own axes, distracting; as the siege went on there were occasional outbreaks of anger and frustration, of shooting. It was complete madness throughout. Dissension on both sides, woundings. When RAGA - or was it really AGRA? - launched that final attack, the key action was a firefight in the confined space of a corridor. The intensity of the fire that followed…. some people may have simply vaporised.

"Afterwards, more terrorists attacked amid the carnage even as scene of crime forensic units investigated. An unexpected brief flurry of violence. Several bodies seem to have been liberated in the melee. Some art treasures."

"The black pearl?"

"Ask Nico his opinion on that." She shrugged. Frustrated but resigned to that frustration. "But you can see the problem. Control and containment inefficient. Mistakes made. Also a suspicion some victims and terrorists played dead - and, in the chaos, who knew which were which? - before quietly slipping away, out through the net."

"An incompetent mess."

"Truly. Many lessons learnt far too late. And the widespread blame and shame of that has also muddied the waters."

"Explains why the whole thing was never made public."

"Yes. The chaos afterwards did not help."

They both sipped tea. Ate Mrs Hudson's biscuits from the tin.

"How did Tamora die? Tell me, Nia."

"Her death ….was plain wrong. Never looked like the accidental killing of a victim simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." Tamora Sologashvili's sister in law dropped her head and grimaced. "She was shot between the eyes at close quarters.

"That knowledge upsets my brother the most. Not knowing why she died like that."

"I see. Guilt? Or a suspicion she might have been involved herself, somehow? Put down in revenge, perhaps? Explains his reluctance to confide in me. Why Hilary kept information from me. But unprofessional. And it does not help!"

The last word was a shout of frustration as he slammed his fist onto the table.

"I am sorry, Sherlock. Perhaps I should have spoken while you were in Tblisi."

"Yes, you should. I need to return. Speak to Nico again. And Hilary." He looked up, expression distant. "The answer is out there, Nia. I can taste it."

He drew back into himself to glare at her.

"And you. You have your own explaining to do." He paused as she blinked in surprise at him, waited until her eyes sought his.

"What were you doing flirting with me, touching me, when you have a husband at home? Doctor Ingorkva?" He spat out her title like a curse.

"Oh. I should explain…..." She was embarrassed. He stared, did not speak. Left her to push herself into confession. "That is indeed my proper name - I did not want to use my patronym to Mary Watson. It did not seem politic to have her recognise it, perhaps link me - and you - to my brother. Which would reveal investigation into what happened in the British Embassy has reopened. She would work that out. And may not like that idea."

She looked up and gave him a twisted smile..

"My marriage to Davit really lasted only long enough for him to give me his name. I think my family was too much for him to live up to. Or down to? Whatever. He is now happily married to a younger, prettier blonde. They seem well suited."

He did not respond.

"If you met him you would wonder why we bothered. The follies of youth," she added, too light in her dismissal, and he saw that lingering grief in her.

"He wanted your beauty and your intellect. And then found both too much for his ego. It happens. More than you might think."

"Yes. Is that what happened to you?" This time she looked properly and smiled into his eyes. Knew from the dark blankness behind those intriguing sea storm eyes he was not going to answer her. "Thank you. For your understanding."

"You still have not explained why you flirted with me."

"Does a woman have to explain such a thing to a handsome and desirable man such as yourself?"

"I am neither handsome nor desirable. As you would understand if you knew me better."

"Chance would be a fine thing," she teased. And then grinned at him. "If only I had met you first!"

"Hmn. Don't get your hopes up." Non committal. That telling little frown. Slightly irritated. She was getting the measure of him now, she thought. More bark than bite. So she dared ask:

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Not coming with you to Sotheby's," he replied levelly. "Scotland Yard has summoned me. I have a case. But before that we need a meal. It has been a strange day for us both. I know a good Turkish restaurant just three streets away. Perhaps more to your taste than fish and chips in the paper?"

o0o0o

A quiet and secret smile lingered on his face as he sat in his grey chair the next day, wrapped in a camel dressing gown over formal shirt and trousers, something vibrant yet suppressed in his very stillness.

Something reassured now. Something Nia Sologashvili had been ultimately responsible for.

"Be her friend," she had counselled him over a quiet and relaxed dinner in an upmarket Turkish restaurant close to 221B. "You were harsh to her this evening Call her. Apologise. Get back onside. Charm her, Sherlock That is not beyond you."

He knew instantly she was right. Knew he should have been the new and caring persona he was trying to present earlier rather than his normal abrasive self. But being human - allowing himself to be human - was hard work. An effort. Uncomfortable and exposing. And did not come naturally. Nor did he want it to.

So that morning, after he knew John Watson would have left for work, he rang their home number.

"Hello?" No noise in the background, no crying baby. A lull in the storm that was childcare. Watson had to be sleeping.

"I need to apologise," he said without preamble. "I was unnecessarily harsh to you last night. Rushed you and Watson out. It was unforgivable."

Her ripple of genuine laughter surprised him. He had been braced for….something other.

"Oh, Sherlock!" the smile travelled down the telephone to his ear; relaxed, genuinely amused, slightly superior. "I shouldn't have expected anything else, should I? Lumbering you with a baby you had never so much as even cuddled before - but there you were, doing a feed and changing a nappy! I wish I had seen it. To admire you.

"You rose to the challenge magnificently. More than I would have ever expected. No wonder you were a bit frazzled!"

"I was not frazzled!" he began indignantly. Stuttered to a halt. Thought about that, and his new resolve, and back pedalled. "Well. Perhaps a bit frazzled."

He heard her snort of genuine laughter in his ear.

"I'm sorry, Mary. Care and caring does not come naturally to me. I am mainly at a loss."

"You're doing fine," she reassured, her voice soft. "You were our friend, there in an emergency, when we needed you. You can ask no more of a friend than that."

The sincerity in tone as well as the force of the words rendered him speechless. And as if she knew that, she added, even more quietly: " You worry that you will grow to love her. And you perceive love as weakness."

He did not respond so she continued: "Also, if she is seen with you instead of with us, seen as part of your life, someone out there may consider us all an expanded and divided target; more susceptible to a hit. Yes?"

"Yes," he admitted. "I always fear….I made a vow, Mary. To keep the three of you safe. Sometimes the burden of that overpowers me."

"But why do you think someone might target us, Sherlock? Who could there be? Moriarty is dead. Magnussen is dead. Magnussen's protégé is dead. Who's left?"

"I don't know." At this point honesty was suddenly no effort to him: they communicated as professional to professional. "And that worries me the most, Mary. I saw Moriarty die. Yet his body disappeared from Bart's rooftop. It took two years to destroy Moriarty's network. The law of averages suggests I just might have missed someone; someone loyal.

"Like Baldessi out to avenge Magnussen. Minor players abound who may step out of the shadows to trip me. That is the way revenge works and ramps up. There may be someone after all or any of us. I cannot rule anyone out. Do you see?"

"There isn't anyone left. Honestly, Sherlock. I can smell danger just as well as you. And my nose isn't even twitching. Relax, you silly man."

"I can't relax. Don't you understand?" He pulled a deep breath. Heard himself being over reactive, over cautious. Forced himself to drop his shoulders, relax his voice. Make a joke, even.

"Oh, Don't mind me! I've probably just snorted too much baby powder! I'm sorry, Mary."

"Not as much as me! But remember what I said: you watch my back, so now I watch yours. That's how this works. I'm not going to let anyone harm you if I can stop them. Please believe me. She gave a self conscious laugh. "This conversation is getting too serious! So remind John when you see him we need shopping from the chemist for Rosie …."

And they ended their conversation cordially, like friends. Both of them smiling. Good terms reapplied. A little humour shared. Back on track. Getting her to trust him was a ploy that was working. And was winning.

o0o0o

On his afternoon off from the surgery, that smile, those relaxed shoulders, were the first impressions of the consulting detective John Watson caught as he entered 221B. Even before he looked at Lestrade, standing casual and contained and clearly already on the far side of a conversation, who greeted him with a relaxed "Hey."

"Afternoon," the word encompassed the room, but Sherlock Holmes remained silent, merely flicking a look in his friend's direction. Their eyes met briefly, a whisper of the old and easy accord between them. And John Watson caught, with something like relief, that fleering mood, something of the secret wisdom, the simmering excitement, that had once been so habitual. Nothing of the overwrought tears from an earlier meeting they had never discussed that still seared his mind. Prodded his conscience. Tears and weakness and unparalleled honesty.

This man, relaxed before him, felt and looked more like the old Sherlock Holmes. The one who had been seemed absent from his life for far too long. Probably since he had returned from the dead. John Watson did not want to think of that, what had happened between them, which of them might have been most to blame, and swallowed downboth relief and excitement.

Sherlock Holmes saw that recognition, something different about himself today John Watson welcomed; could not contain that secret smile. But he did not want to contain it, he realised. He had earned it. And so, perhaps, had John Watson.

John. Strong, loyal, steadfast. Even when angry with him. Even when in despair. Honest and protective, brave and ready to kill for him. Had killed for him. A debt Sherlock Holmes knew he could never repay. From that first day they had met and ever after. There was no-one like John Watson.

But there was also no-one like his wife. The wife he blamed himself for John Watson acquiring; because John Watson had found and chosen her to tether his grief and be his substitute when he had chosen to leap fro a rf and pretend to die. So Mary Watson was his fault, his penance. Barrier, addition, distraction, complication. Danger, enigma, lover and mother. John's joy and Sherlock's sufferance.

Nia's comment the evening before, about him being frightened of Mary Watson, had stuck in his head like a burr, goaded him into new and vulnerable areas of thought and action.

Perhaps she was right, and he had been too hard on Mary when he had thrown her out of the flat? But looking after the baby had been unexpected and terrifying, had made him raw and vulnerable, demanded too much unwanted responsibility that also mocked his inexperience in this facet of adult existence.

And coping with Nia Sologashvili's surprising presence in 221B.. Both experiences, so very different, of being wanted and needed, as a human being, not as a freak or a thinking machine…..were…disconcerting. He did not like to be disconcerted. Especially by factors so distastefully trivial. So human. So alien.

 _Stop! Stop thinking like that! Like a mawkish teenager…Think properly. Process. Yes._

Stop. The last thing he needed now was alienate Mary Watson. He needed to be, before anything else, the 'dear and trusted friend' as she had so formally described him in her will, the man she said she had liked at first sight, had made a logical _(Emotional? Instinctive?)_ decision to trust.

He needed to keep John safe, keep Mary safe for his sake, now even more than ever. Keep Baby Watson safe for them both. _(For him too? His god daughter, God help him. An unsought responsibility, but a responsibility nevertheless, for this child of the man to whom he owed his life, and to the woman who had taken it. God, what irony. And what a mess, even for someone who eschewed emotion and all it involved….) Stopitstoptit._

 _Was Moriarty back? Still alive yet hiding and pulling down his spider's webs? Engineering revenge from beyond the grave? Indulging in his obsession with maiming or possessing or killing Sherlock Holmes? And hurting him by hurting anyone who was important to him?_

 _Did anyone else but Moriarty understand how emasculating it was to him to admit he might even care what happened to them? To anyone?_

 _Did Mary have links to Moriarty, as she had had to Magnussen? Did she have another role in the Tblisi siege he could not yet see? Or was she the key to solving the puzzles that still presented, even six years on?_

 _More reasons for observing and learning, gaining trust, trying to make sense of all the puzzles and problems facing him at the moment, and where Mary Watson - Morstan - Johnson- Ro Adams - and whoever else she was and might have been, and who appeared to be the only common denominator in this maze and mire._

 _So despite himself he had to stay close to her. And more. Be nice. Be human. Be vulnerable. Even if that meant changing nappies and bouncing her baby (John's baby!) like a fond fool, mawkish and demeaning, trying to be natural and unselfconscious and how positively hateful that would be….)_

He could hear the checklist rolling through his mind. He hated it. Human. Trivial. Fond. Hated it all. All of it. But he had to do it. Crawl. Communicate. Apologise. Throw himself upon her mercy.

 _It will work. And the more often I do this thing, the easier it will become. That's the theory, isn't it? So it must be true. But._

 _But what if it does get easier? And I get used to it? Cannot then pull back to being me again? Cannot return to my cold and safe self, insulated from a life other people think normal? Cannot live down the knowledge that people I know have seen me being caring and loving and vulnerable…when none of that is ME? I cannot admit it is all just me playing the game. So what if this role traps me in base humanity? Changes me? What then?_

 _Who will I be? What will I do? Can I still be me if I am changed? Belittled and beaten down into common emotion? Still do my work with proper objectivity? Still stay safe and aloof and alone? And if I can't go back to being me…..who and what will I be then? Will I be able to live with the new me? And if this does happen to me - is it a form of death? Of resurrection?_

 _This is more dangerous than taking down Moriarty!_

 _No. Onwards and upwards. I will make this work…Oh! John is smiling. Comfortable, engaged._

 _Oh! Saying something…._

o0o0o

"He says you've got a good one, Greg."

"Yeah."

They chatted together a little, both aware of the electric stillness in the room with them. Revelling in the novelty of having it back again, but not acknowledging it aloud, or asking the reason why.

Sherlock Holmes was very still now, only too aware of their new minted awareness of him. But reassured they did not know what had changed his attitude, his mental gear.

Shock, he thought. It was the shock and the sudden clarity, the certainty, of his own awareness of what he had to do now. How deep he had to dive, draw up out of himself all the right responses. The right direction to gain the right results after all this time.

Optimism was not his thing. Hope was never his mindset. And yet there was an insistent little voice in his head which would not go away. That despite his fears for himself, perhaps - just perhaps - this case of Lestrade's was going to bring resolution to other problems.

Perhaps this was the case with the connections he had been hunting down for months. While John Watson thought he was just being his manic, eccentric self. Madly spinning plates, any plates, to stave off the habitual boredom that plagued a brilliant mind.

Lestrade had been only one of many people he had briefed to find a lead; internet links where he had set alerts, obtruse questions he asked any and every where, always hunting for the one case, the one connection, he knew would open the door. There had to be something out there to connect Tblisi, and Thatcher, however lightly, or at whatever idiotic tangent it.

One connection to start the ball rolling, he was sure it was out there. Would find the black pearl, answers all the questions about the siege in Tblisi. About Mary Watson's very survival. About her entire role in the entire mess of it all. And why it had not only ended her career, but changed her entire life.

Museums and art galleries, Conservative associations then all other political groupings. Gentleman's clubs, experts in modern history, diplomats and politician and his homeless network. Ethnic societies connected with Georgia or Russia, businesses owned and operated by Georgian or Russian families.

Any connection, any opening, any door that could be pushed and show daylight on the other side. When any move, any ripple of reaction, could be the very thing he was seeking.

Lestrade started to explain the case - this case - for John Watson's benefit. The main facts Sherlock Holmes already knew.

The story of David Welsborough's fiftieth birthday. Celebrated with fifty friends, wife Emma, the only person missing to make the evening complete, their only son Charlie.

David Welsborough. Member of Parliament for Westrill and Starmore, a rising poster boy for the Conservative party after army service (Major, Royal Anglians) A Minister for Defence. From stable old money (malting and milling) Stable marriage to Emma. Stable background - Eton and Lancaster. Handsome, plodding and honest in equal measure, and not over bright, And thus talent spotted to go fast and far in politics.

A birthday party undistinguished apart from a telephone call from Charlie, backpacking in Tibet. The silliness of taking a photograph, to prove something to his friends in that far off land, answer a bet for Charlie, about the plastic Power Range toy as figurehead on the radiator of his old banger.

"But a week later something really weird happens," Lestrade said, his eye on the dramatic pause to snag John Watson's attention. Who leant closer, while Sherlock Holmes simply smiled.

How a week later real life intruded when a criminal pursued by police turned his speeding car into the gates of the Welsborough home, ran into the back of Charlie's old car - and both exploded. The thief was captured, unharmed. And yet in the old car, which had been sitting quietly on the drive for some weeks, a corpse was found in the driving seat.

"Whose body?" John Watson asked, intrigued.

"Charlie Welsborough. The son."

"What?"

"The son who was in Tibet," Lestrade explained.." DNA all checks out. The night of the party the car's empty. Then after the party the dead boy's found at the wheel. Of his car."

Eyes closed, picturing the scene, Sherlock Holmes chuckled.

"Yeah,. I thought it would tickle you," Lestrade retorted drily. Suddenly aware the detective he was consulting might already have worked out the solution.

"Have you got a lab report?" John Watson asked.

Lestrade scrabbled in his briefcase and spilled out folders.

"Yeah," he said, offering paperwork.. "Charlie Welsborough's the son of a Cabinet minister. So this result needs to be solid."

The doctor made a silent pout of understanding and nodded.

"So I'm under a lot of pressure to get results…" he looked sideways. Towards Sherlock Holmes, whose eyes snapped open.

"Who cares about that?" he dismissed the diplomacy. But now on high alert. "Tell me about the seats."

"The seats?" John Watson echoed.

"Yes. The car seats."

Lestrade sighed, handed a single folder to Sherlock Holmes. Who quickly scanned the contents.

"Made of vinyl. Two different types of vinyl present," he mused aloud. Looked up thoughtfully. "Was it his own car?"

"Yeah. Not flash. He was a student."

"Well that's suggestive," an apparently casual remark before sitting back and thinking.

"Why?" Lestrade asked. Earning himself a vague bright smile.

"Vinyl's cheaper than leather."

"Er, yeah. Right "

"There's something else," John Watson said, reading.

"Yes?"

"According to this, Charlie Welsborough had already been dead for a week.".

The consulting detective's smile moved from disengaged to delight.

"The body in the car. Dead for a week," the doctor repeated. Watching his friend think.

"Oh, this is a good one." He looked across at Lestrade, an open boyish grin. Swallowed his eagerness. "Is this my birthday? You want help?"

"Yes please."

"One condition." He had thought about this. About how easy this case was to solve. About where it might lead. About how publicity - directed at him - on such a high profile case involving a Conservative Cabinet minister, could attract attention. Which would be the wrong kind of attention. Which would allow someone else headspace to link him - if so inclined - to Thatcher and Tblisi. And wonder just how and why he was involved.

Thus be alerted. Suspicious. And - knowing more, or knowing all - might think having the great Sherlock Holmes on the case would lead to discovery. And panic. And pre-emptive attack. Take out anyone who might have knowledge or secrets of their own.

There was a list. Mary Watson. Nico Sologashvili. Hilary Weatherstone. And more perhaps. The assumption of sharing knowledge with others. John Watson. Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock Holmes….

"Take all the credit." he ordered. Then, seeing the incredulous faces of both Lestrade and Watson, added as excuse: "It gets boring if I just solve them all."

Lestrade struggled manfully to find the right words to respond. Found some.

"Yeah, you say that. But then John blogs about it and you get all the credit anyway."

John Watson looked up, handed the folder back to the detective inspector and laughed.

"Yeah, he's got a point."

"Which makes me look like some kind of prima donna who insists on getting credit for something he didn't do," Lestrade pointed out.

"Oh, I think you've hit a sore spot, Sherlock!" John Watson was amused.

For an instant Sherlock Holmes looked startled, as if unable to imagine that reaction from someone as world weary and laid back as Greg Lestrade. Shook his head at John Watson as if not understanding.

"Like I'm some kind of credit junkie," Lestrade added.

"Yeah, definitely a sore spot…"

"So you take all the glory, thanks…." Lestrade was adamant.

"OK."

"Thanks all the same…."

Distracted, Sherlock Holmes offered some old and tired banter involving Lestrade's name to distract both Lestrade and Watson from what he had said. Easier to stop John Watson blogging about this case later, after it was solved. When attention had died down. After he had turned focus back to the official forces of law and order, not himself.

Yes He could do that later. For now solving the case - seeing beyond it - was the most important thing.

In time he would stop Watson blogging about it, should it lead where he thought it might. Not telling this tale online. Or anywhere. Cite the Official Secrets Act. Mycroft's wrath. Any bloody thing. Just keep a lid on it…

He watched both John Watson and Greg Lestrade sit back in astonishment.

 _Modesty? Self effacement? Consideration for others? Sherlock Holmes?_

He could see incredulity in their eyes at his modestcondition.

"Look." Lestrade finally stated flatly in frustration. "Just solve the thing will you? It's driving me nuts"

"Anything you say, Giles."

And he did not know which of them was most reassured.

o0o0o

So he played up to the joke until finally putting a stop to the banter. By calling the detective inspector Greg.

"Let's help you solve your little problem, Greg."

So then there were jokes about Watson sleeping and being a hands on father; quips about caring for a baby, more jokes as they clattered down the stairs. Jokes aimed obliquely at him.

But he wasn't concentrating on the jokes. Wasn't hurt, because he wasn't paying attention. Was purely and wholly focused on getting to David Welsborough's house and seeing the situation for himself. Finding the connection.

o0o0o

"Charlie's family are pretty cut about it, as you would expect. So go easy on them, yeah?"

The three men left the taxi at the bottom of the drive. Since the collision David Welsborough had kept his gates closed.

 _Shutting the door after the horse had bolted. Something like that? Typical politician's reaction; response too little, too late. Crocodile tears after the event…_

"You know me," he responded quietly.

Lestrade was about to reply when John Watson's mobile pinged; a skype call from Mary.

"Got em, don't worry, Pampers. The cream you can't get from Boots…"

Boring. Domestic. Sherlock Holmes and Greg Lestrade kept walking, rolling their eyes at the mundane subject matter of the call. While the consulting detective remembered the white plastic carrier that stood in the hall of 221B by the front door. Clearly baby materials John Watson had purchased on the way to his old home; he had not thought it worth while to even register before.

Politely ignoring the call they walked on. But then were listening despite themselves, and realising Mary Watson still had much of Mary Morstan about her.

"Never mind about that," as the voice from the phone spoke impatiently. "Where are you now? At the dead boy's house?" A pause. Both men recalled the flurry of texts the doctor had been absorbed with while travelling in the taxi. "And what does HE think? Any theories?"

 _HE? That's me. Oh. She's interested, not angry. Thinking, then. Not sulking._

"Mmmn, well, I texted you the details…." the husband demurred.

"Yes, two different types of vinyl…."

Unable to resist her alertness, Sherlock Holmes swept the phone from John Watson's hand. Looked at the familiar face on screen and saw she had Baby Watson in her arms. Standing in their kitchen, the mobile propped against something; a mug perhaps; immaterial.

"How do you know about that?"

Softly, not sharply. A question, not interrogation.

"Oh, you'd be amazed what a receptionist picks up." She was suddenly smiling directly at him. Eyes sparkling, pleased he had noticed she had noticed. Quirked her head, and said in a low and rather coquettish, exaggerated voice: "They know _everything_!"

"Solved it, then." Statement, not question. Fishing, certainly. Praise, even.

"I'm working on it."

There was a small beat of time. Of thought.

 _She thinks we are united by this sort of thing, she and I. Follow the same professional mental paths. Genuinely wants to think she and I are connected. Makes her feel alive. Capable. Safe. Accepted. And contributing._

 _Yes. That call earlier had been worth the shame of doing it; had re-established her on side. Assuaged. Cooperative. Relaxed._

 _Just a push, now. A little test….._

"Oh Mary, motherhood is slowing you down."

"Pig!"

 _Ah. Mild insult inferring parity, acceptance, Affection?_

"Keep trying."

 _A compliment, of sorts. Time to withdraw before the grooming becomes obvious. Of Mary and John both….._

He handed the phone back; as they entered under the original stone porch before the solid front door with it's elegant Doric columns. Looked up briefly, distracted by an outside light glowing, a modern flaw to the understated perfection of the house.

"So what about it then?"

Her question visibly interrupted his thoughts. That the front door was already open, waiting for them.

"An empty car with a corpse in it," Mary Watson continued to prod." And what are you going to call this one?"

"Oh!" John Watson at least still had his eyes and mind on his phone. "The Ghost Driver?"

"Don't give it a title."

He spoke automatically, to fill space. Pausing then, stopping in the atrium to look around. Grand staircase, light and lovely décor, old money good taste. Nothing special or characterful. But a boot scuff on a skirting board, a rumpled carpet edge. A frisson in the air.

"People like the titles," John Watson defended.

"I hate the titles."

Insignificant conversation without thought. Diversionary tactic to conceal observation.

"Give the people what they want."

"No, never do that. People are stupid."

"Er - some people are stupid."

He had almost forgotten the half presence of Mary Watson. But up she popped again, with a correcting and attention seeking comment.

"All people are stupid," he repeated. Eased back his judgement. Offered another sideways compliment. "…most people."

Concentrated, just then. On being nice. Leant into the mobile's screen, straight into her eyes, offered her the ghost of a genuine smile, leant away.

Did not see John Watson wink conspiratorially into the mobile at his wife before switching off.

But Lestrade had been watching.

"Bizarre enough though isn't it? To be him?" The comment was seemingly apropos of nothing. He did not refer directly to what he meant, did not seem to expect an answer, either. But he was a detective inspector who had known the consulting detective for a very long time. Who saw more than he admitted. Worried more than he articulated.

So Sherlock Holmes ignored him yet again while John Watson looked searchingly at them both, eyes lingering on Lestrade for that moment. Wondering what he saw.

The old Sherlock was back, the look between them said; and yet he was still being something other. Both were disconcerting.

They all stepped further inside.

o0o0o

Sitting room. Perfect proportions, high ceilings with elegant rose and chandelier, ornate picture rails, polished slate fireplace. Paintings on the walls, Bow porcelain on the mantel.

An elegant and nominally attractive upper middle class, middle aged couple - he, blandly blond; she, darkly petite - perched awkwardly on a Gillow sofa.

( _Awkward? In their own house? Lacking confidence, then. Lacking power and knowledge. OK. That was why he was there…to gain and share power and knowledge.)_

Bay window with a beautiful vista across estate grounds and countryside. Adjust vision, horizons, perspective. Look down.

 _Oh God_.

Fist in the chest. Smack to the head. Knife in the eyes. Bolt in the brain.

D _o not wobble! You knew this day would come. Some day. Some time. That day is now. Control. Control!_

Transfixed - utterly transfixed - by a leather topped mahogany drum table set before the window opening. Focus of the room, a room with antique, more valuable and more meaningful items, within it. Important, then, this table. Personally and professionally relevant.

 _Oh dear God. A collection of memorabilia. Margaret Thatcher memorabilia. Oh. Dear. God Is this really it, then? Finally it? Finally…the start of the end?_

Tore eyes and mind back to the original purpose of being there.

 _Think. Public school manners for the surface stuff. The utterly unimportant and simple solution to the boy's death. Sort it all out. Quickly. Don't be boring._

"Mr and Mrs Welsborough." An inclination of the head in formal greeting. " I really am most terribly sorry to hear about your daughter."

"Son." An instantly muttered John Watson correction in his ear.

"Son." Refocus,, reword, even as his friend formed that telling single syllable in his ear.

 _Stupid, stupid mistake" Get a grip!_

Lestrade also tried to jump in, to cover his oh-so-basic error with an unnecessary formal introduction. "Mr and Mrs Welsborough. This is Mr Sherlock Holmes."

 _Mister? Really? Whenever did Lestrade actually say that? Give him a title? Is that punishment? Warning. Row back. Now._

"Thank you very much for coming," More good manners. The Right Honourable David Welsborough this time, hand out to shake hands. "We've heard a great deal about you. If anyone can throw any light into this darkness surely it will be you."

"Well, I believe that I….." Irresistible glance to his right, eyes and mind drawn back to the table. "Can….."

David Welsborough was talking; just platitudes. Pointless waste of breath. A script the detective could have written himself before the words even formed in the other man's brain. In the event, Sherlock just could not resist the pull, the puzzle, the problem, the appeal of the little drum table.

At the rear, a large white card, framed, on a stand; heraldic device, gilt lettering, heavy black script, elegant card stock; a personal invitation from the Prime Minister to David Welsborough, to attend a reception at 10, Downing Street.

Before it, a famous portrait photograph of the MP for Finchley; A framed photograph of The Iron Lady with a young David Welsborough at some social occasion. Smiling at each other, known to each other, comfortable in each other's presence. Acquainted. Colleagues.

A limited edition commemorative plate with hand painted detail and gold lining, a limited edition porcelain bust. And, the absence that called him, a space between the items where the leather top looked freshly scuffed with microscopic traces of fine white dust, which showed the faint dent of a larger, heavier base, He looked, focused, and felt faint. Felt light flooding into his brain.

 _So long. So long. And finally, here is Fate calling….._

"Sherlock." John Watson's voice penetrated the intellectual and sensory overload as if from a great distance.

Mr Holmes?" David Welsborough. Polite, vaguely puzzled concern.

 _Did I just go completely offline? Freeze? Forget to speak, communicate? Breathe? Pay attention! Control!_

"Sorry, you were saying….?" Contained a gasp of realisation. Tried to.

"Well, Charlie was our whole world Mr Holmes," the Minister stumbled over his words; upset. "I -I don't think we'll ever get over this."

"No. Shouldn't think so."

Looked away, looked back. Something behind Welsborough's eyes. A shift in Watson and Lestrade's reaction.

 _Ah. All appalled by my indifference. Fuck it, who cares? This is more….No. Multitask. Address both problems._

Deep pull of breath. Another. A gesture away from the Welsboroughs and common humanity. Towards the magnetic draw of the table. No! Back to the room with an effort.

"So sorry. Will you excuse me a moment? I just….."

Stepped closer to the table, still staring at it.

Behind him, David Welsborough looked wordlessly at Lestrade and Watson for direction.

"I'll just…erm… " John Watson cleared his throat, moved close to the consulting detective and spoke very quietly at his elbow, so no-one else could hear.

"Now what's wrong?"

"Not sure, I just…" Broke off to consciously drop his shoulders and breathe. "'by the pricking of my thumbs'…" he quoted. And suddenly stopped talking.

"Seriously? You?"

John Watson was not quite sure what he was questioning. The unusual behaviour - even for Sherlock Holmes? The literary quotation? The lapses in thought and concentration? He never expected good manners from the younger man, and yet….an appearance of them had appeared oddly, a rarity in itself.

Or was that quotation from _Macbeth_ , the intimation of judgement by instinct, was that what the doctor was querying? Sherlock Holmes chose the interpretation that suited him and that in itself was unusual - without sarcasm, self defence or justification, without demands for precision in the question.

"Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend."

He did not look at either Watson or Lestrade as he spoke, but turned back to the Welsboroughs:

"What is this?" More vague gestures towards the little table. Odd tone of voice.

"Oh!" David Welssborough, half smiling, self deprecating, humouring an indulgence. "It's a sort of shrine, I suppose, really." He rose from the sofa to joins the two strangers standing before the table and the glimpse into his highly personal little collection..

"Bit of a fan of Mrs T," he added, almost apologetic. "Big hero of mine when I was getting started."

Sherlock Holmes half turned to him, a smile as polite as it was vacant, before taking out his folding magnifying glass and bending to more closely examine the table.

"Right. Yes." Talking to himself; tearing his attention away again. "Who?: So vague and disconnected he might have been talking in his sleep.

" What?"

"Who…who is this?" A distant stutter, a distracted and very different voice…..the thought flashed through John Watson's mind that his friend may have taken something. Anything. Tried to dismiss the idea.

"Are you serious?" Welsborough was having difficulty holding onto his good manners.

Another low warning from John Watson: "Sherlock…."

"It's…" The Minister's turn to stutter. This time in barely repressed anger, appalled. "It's…. Margaret Thatcher. First female Prime Minister of this country."

"Right."

He stood upright, straight and elegant again, having bent down to examine the table and the floor around it. Almost as if completely unaware of the other people, the other issue, the proper human issue, in the room.

"Prime Minister?" Silly question in the circumstances. The voice both dangerously soft, yet dangerously high pitched.

Lestrade was still and impassive. Watson counted to ten and thought he might commit murder very shortly.

"Hmn. Leader of the Government," the minister said tetchily. Suspicious now of being the butt of a joke he did not understand while in the midst of tragedy.

"Right." The detective did not register the new hardness in the voice speaking to him. Too absorbed in the other thing to hear or to care.

Squatted back down with hard concentration and his folding magnifying glass before raising his head and asking:

"Female?"

"For God's sake! You know perfectly well who she is! "David Welsborough turned away in disgust, going back to his wife's side, but John Watson moved even closer.

"Why are you playing for time?" he asked quietly, without heat. No other reason for such an absurd appearance of ignorance.

"It's the gap," was the reply. Concentrated, almost fervid. "Look at the gap. It's wrong. Everything else is perfectly ordered, managed…."

Concentrating so hard on this new puzzle he did not even notice his host walking away, glaring balefully at Lestrade, sitting back down with Emma and taking her hand, squeezing it. Both of them bereaved, lost, hopeless and bewildered. Almost angry. Lestrade merely shrugged apologetically.

"This whole thing's verging on OCD," Sherlock Holmes said to himself. Talking about himself. Rendering his friend speechless.

He finally turned away from the table and focussed with difficulty, with a little hiss of self disgust, on the Welsboroughs.

"My respects," he said formally. Drew a deep breath. Started to focus….but then was distracted again by his own deductions.

"This figurine is routinely repositioned after the cleaner's been in." He pointed to the Royal Worcester bust, then to Margaret Thatcher's official portrait. "This picture's straightened every day. Yet this ugly gap remains."

He moved his hand, pointing to the vacant space, continued to think aloud..

"Something's missing from here, but only recently."

Back down in front of the table.

"Yes, a…"

"…plaster bust," David Welsborough and Sherlock Holmes almost spoke as one.

A little nod, a quirk of the head in confirmation of his deduction. That dust in the scratch on the leather tabletop.

"Plaster," Sherlock Holmes mused. "With the unique and expensive items in your collection…why give pride of place to a cheap plaster bust?"

"It was a gift. From Charlie. While he was still at school. Bought with his pocket money," she answered.

"How long ago?"

"What? I don't know. Who cares?"

"I care, Mrs Welsborough. If you don't mind."

She made thee effort to remember a pleasure now painful. And her husband took pty on her.

"Five year ago, perhaps. Six? For my birthday. Can't remember exactly," David Welsborough frowned at the memory, bit his lip to hold back his own upset.

"Where did it come from?"

"Dunno. Mail order from abroad, I think…." .

"Oh, for God's sake!" Emma Welsborough could not keep quiet any longer. "It got broken! What the hell has this got to do with Charlie?"

Almost as if he had not registered nor even heard the outburst, Sherlock Holmes straightened up, clicked the magnifying glass closed:

"Rug!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Emma could not help herself.

"Well, how could it get broken?" he demanded. "The only place for it to fall is the floor, and there is a big thick rug. Not, perhaps, a domestic accident?"

"Does it matter?" Emma; emotionally exhausted and exasperated.

"Mrs Welsborough, my apologies," John Watson crossed the room to the couple, a voice of sanity, a barrier between them and the increasingly eccentric behaviour of his friend.. "It is worth letting him do this." He spoke with a conviction he did not necessarily feel.

"Is your friend quite mad?" Emma asked, convinced she already knew the answer.

"No." A rueful smile. "He's an arsehole. But it's an easy mistake."

The tiny shared smile broke David Welsborough's worn patience.

"Look…NO!" The protest was wrenched out of him. "We had a break in. Some little bastard smashed it to bits. We found the remains out there in the porch."

"The porch where we came in?"

An almost imperceptible nod.

"Do you still have the bits?"

"We have a dustbin! Of course we bloody don't!" He ducked his head and fought for self control. "How anybody could hate her so much they'd go to the trouble of smashing her likeness…."

"I'm no expert, but - er -" a sideways body flip of either humour or despair." possibly her face?"

John Watson closed his eyes in embarrassment and had no words.

"No - think!" A swirl of movement and mental energy reached out and was almost tangible. "If the burglar hated her, why didn't he smash all the other things? Perfect opportunity. And look at that one…" .points to the official photograph with distaste…. "And she's smiling in that one!"

Emma Welsborough turned to Lestrade in angry appeal. "Oh, Inspector! This is clearly a waste of time. I mean, if there's nothing more…."

Finally Sherlock Holmes focused completely on the Welsboroughs. Turned fully towards them and inclined his head in a small formal bow. Face serious, manner collected.

"I know what happened to your son," he said plainly.

"You do?" Emma was as frightened as she was shocked at the change of topic, the change in the man before her.

"It's quite simple. Superficial, to be blunt. But first tell me: the night of the break in. The room was in darkness?"

"Well, yes."

"And nothing else was taken? Despite the fact this room is full of precious things, all of them more valuable than one cheap and rather tacky plaster bust?"

He paused for breath, but did not need any reply. Because he knew the answer.

"And the porch where it was smashed. I noticed that the motion sensor on the exterior entrance light was damaged. Before the burglary? Yes? So I assume it's currently permanently lit? And was when the burglary occurred?"

"How did you notice that?" Lestrade interjected.

Sherlock Holmes turned and looked him full in the face. Lestrade, knowing the man so well, was quelled by what he fleetingly saw there before the detective turned away from him. And what he heard in the voice.

"I lack the arrogance to ignore details. I'm not the police."

Words that came from a deep well of intelligence, of deduction and barely repressed anger. Was there fear and trepidation there too? Either way Lestrade did not challenge the comment, nor rise to the bait; for he knew only too well how strongly the consulting detective could attack in self defence. When feeling vulnerable and weakened and isolated.

Lestrade looked helplessly at the doctor, and passed the ball back into play.

"So you're saying he smashed it where he could see it?" John Watson clarified. Starting to finally seen what Sherlock Holmes had seen from the very first.

"Exactly."

"Why?" his friend persisted.

"Dunno." A change of tone; sarcasm, self flagellation, dismissal. " Wouldn't it be fun if I knew?"

"Mr Holmes, please…." Emma Welsborough, strung out and tearful.

He pulled back his shoulders. Took a steadying breath,

"It was your fiftieth birthday, Mr Welsborough. Of course you were disappointed that your son hadn't made it back from his gap year. After all, he was in Tibet."

"Yes."

"No."

"No?"

"The first part of your conversation was in fact a pre recorded video. Easily arranged, The trick was meant to be a surprise."

"Trick?"

"Obviously. There were two types of vinyl in the burnt out remains of the car. One, the actual passenger seat. The other a good copy. Well, good enough. Effectively a costume."

Staring at him in disbelief, all David Welsborough could manage to say was: "You're joking."

"No I'm not. What he wanted was to get you close enough to the car so he could spring his surprise. That's when it happened. I can't be certain, of course, but I think he suffered some sort of seizure. You said he'd felt unwell?

"He died there and then. No-one had any cause to go near his car, so there he remained in the driver's seat, hidden until…" he drew back from describing the facts of the car collision, the injuries to Charlie Welsborough's body. "When the two cars were examined - the scene of the accident, and the evidence that cannot lie - it showed the fake seat, which had melted in the fire, and revealed Charlie, who had been sitting there, quite dead, for a week."

At that unbearable revelation, Emma Welsborough broke down in tears.

"Oh my God!" Staring at the consulting detective in shock, looking round at the calm professional acceptance on the faces of Watson and Lestrade. Her husband reached over to attempt to comfort her. And himself.

Sherlock Holmes looked at them both for a rare lingering moment.

"It would be impossible to determine a cause of death. In the circumstances." Again he avoided describing the actuality, the awful mental image of their dead son.

"Perhaps he came home incubating a terminal illness. Perhaps he had some congenital but unknown health defect that was going to catch him before his time. Or perhaps he simply succumbed to Adult Sudden Death Syndrome."

The parents looked at him, huge dark eyes in pallid faces.

"If it s any consolation to you both," Sherlock Holmes continued. Almost gently. "He came home to die. He did not die alone, on a Thai mountainside, his body eaten by predators, so you would never know for sure what had happened to him, or where he was.

"He came home to you. Died peacefully at home, however unexpected, and his last thoughts were of you both, of the fun of his birthday surprise. Could be worse." Paused.

"Really, I'm so sorry. Mr Welsborough, Mrs Welsborough."

Turned away before they could speak, and swung rapidly out of the room.

o0o0o

By the time Lestrade and John Watson had said their own apologies and goodbyes, followed him out of the sitting room and left the stunned couple behind them,, they found Sherlock Holmes outside and stooping down in the shadow of the porch.

Hunched over something, concentration absolute.

"This is where it was smashed," he observed, mind back to the Thatcher bust, as they reached him, stood looking down to try and see what he saw between the stone plinths and the pea gravel.

"That was amazing." Lestrade said the familiar words this time, not John Watson.

Judgement, assessment, apology for having doubted Sherlock Holmes' eccentric, distracted behaviour in that elegant sitting room.

"What?" The usual impatience, the usual speeding mental process, leaving the older and highly capable policeman trailing behind in his wake.

"The car," Lestrade explained his rare words of praise with deliberate and careful patience. "The kid."

The consulting detective did not even bother to turn or look up, to acknowledge admiration from the professional.

"Ancient history," he said briefly. Irritated, if he could be bothered to give the subject any more thought. "Why are you still talking about it?"

He had moved on. Dismissed the death of one talented and precious young man that had been neither murder nor even a suspicious death; merely, sadly, a tragic death from natural causes.

The doctor and the detective inspector stood and looked at each other across the bent shoulders beneath the encompassing Belstaff, looked down at the tumbling dark curls, the exposed back of a pale neck, the long capable fingers busy with the magnifying glass, coat sleeves pushed up beyond scarred and slender wrists as they worked.

 _What's he up to now? What's he doing? He's not himself."_

" _No. And I don't know why. Or why this stupid burglary is important….."_

The silent communication of friends and equals. Sharing the same puzzle, both baffled.

"What's so important about a broken bust of Margaret Thatcher?" John Watson asked the concentrated silence beside him.

Sherlock Holmes levered himself upright again, only to move sideways a little, still absorbed.

"Can't stand it. Never can." Bent down again in a new spot. "There's a loose thread in the world."

"Yeah, John Watson agreed wearily. "Doesn't mean you have to pull on it."

The negative, gently critical words made him look up sharply, eyes intent.

"What kind of a life would that be?"

Not just a rhetorical question. Imbued with meaning, purpose, philosophy. Without the usual sarcasm, dismissal or anger. Lestrade frowned. Watson blinked. Both without a ready reply.

" Besides," a quiet and thoughtful admission. "I have the strangest feeling…."

A brief, balance tilting flash of memory; of Moriarty, "Miss me?"

 _And what is that about? What relevance is that? Another death that was not what it seemed? Another mystery that appeared one thing but was actually something else? Something more obvious. More simple? Something else that would rip and tear and give grief forever?_

He shook off that thought. Angry the way it kept ambushing him when he was least prepared for it.

Angry when he already had enough stuff filling the Mind Palace. Angry that the solution was still far from his grasp. Angry that things remained unknown, still elusive, and in some vital cases - still concealed.

The broken light had stopped the plaster bust being broken within the sitting room, probably saving the Welsborough's from hearing the intrusion happening; probably saving them from being assaulted or even killed when they were alerted and investigated, as they surely would.

The boot scuff on the wall, the rumpled carpet edge: signs the intruder story was true. That the burglar was in a hurry, which meant that theft was targeted, not a single incident, part of a plan. But what plan? And why?

Nothing else stolen. Yet….why steal a cheap and cheerful plaster bust, so terribly out of place except for sentimental value? Sentimental value as a gift from the recently and unexpectedly deceased Charlie that would have held even more value than before.

But what value was a bust of Thatcher? A bust in plaster - the cheapest of materials, usually used for children's models, Victorian working class fairings? What possible value could the subject or the material have to risk criminality, drawing attention to oneself? Painting a pattern that could be seen?

It did not make sense. Nothing made sense. So he had to dig deep. Find the sense and truth of it all. Ask questions, force answers. Find out about that bust; who had made it, where it had come from. Why it was important. Urgent. Sought. Sought by whom? And why?

Who else had purchased ones just like it? And why? Although that could be hundreds, thousands of people worldwide. Hundreds or thousands of busts. Possibly. All important? Or just the one? Just that one? And would that help or hinder his investigation?

Instead of shaking his head he gritted his teeth.

 _A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…. And I have always been criticised for being bloody minded and tenacious. So. Be bloody minded and tenacious. On we go._

Returned to the here and now. Stood erect with quick determination, Strode across to the black cab waiting in the turning circle without another word to his companions, without looking back.

But he heard their feet on the gravel following him, following his lead.

"That's mine," he flung words claiming the taxi for himself alone behind him to Watson and Lestrade with cold authority. "You two take a…bus," he added as an afterthought.

Perhaps that sounded less like an excuse or an order than an instruction sublimating an apology.

"Why?" John Watson heard, laughing in disbelief. "A bus? Really?"

But Sherlock Holmes did not look back, quirk a grin, back pedal on a misplaced and misunderstood joke.

"I need to concentrate and I don't want to hit you."

Which would have sounded like a joke from anyone else.

He got into the back seat, slammed the door firmly behind him. Leaving the policeman and the doctor stranded alone on gravel.

"The Mall, please."

They saw the words shape on his mouth rather than heard them.

So. Whitehall, then, and whatever that involved.

They watched the taxi scrunch along the drive and accelerate away. Saw the determined set of Sherlock Holmes' shoulders. His immobility of body that usually meant great activity of mind.

"I'll call a cab," Lestrade said wearily as he pulled his mobile from his pocket. "Knew I should have waited until there was a car free in the pool before we came out here."

"You think that would have made any difference?" John Watson asked and began to trudge down the drive in the wake of the fast disappearing taxi. Wondering what was happening. And what would happen next.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's Notes:**

Brown Betty: This is the traditional English teapot. Various sizes, earthenware with shiny treacle (dark brown) glaze. Various makers, over centuries, so hard to date. Mainly working class staple, but considered the best teapot to produce the best cup of tea; real tea enthusiasts will own one as first choice.

Westrill and Starmore: Genuine lost plague villages on the Warwickshire and Leicestershire border. They sound and are authentic. But are not a political constituency.

Pampers: UK market brand leader in disposable nappies (which are not diapers)

Boots: Leading UK national pharmacy/chemist shop chain.

'By the pricking of my thumbs.' which continues 'something wicked this way comes.' Act IV Sc I. One of the most famous quote from Shakespeare's tragedy 'Macbeth.' Attributed to the second witch, it refers to a superstitious practise of folding the thumb into the palm of the hand to protect the person from supernatural influences. 'Pricking' here means tingling; and was often taken as a physical forewarning of unwelcome visitors or ghostly happenings.

Car Seat Costumes: Yes, there really are such things. A variety of types and prices; just google or see YouTube pranksters!

Margaret Thatcher memorabilia: A great deal of it - and the market remains strong. Authentic personally signed memorabilia is rare, but there is a wide range of material. At time of writing a supermarket paper bag signed by her was up for sale ready for mounting and framing. At £250.

OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder A common form of anxiety involving distressing and repetitive thoughts and behaviours.

Adult Sudden Death Syndrome (SADS): The condition of sudden death through cardiac arrest of teenagers and adults without prior symptoms. Affects around 500 people in the UK every year.

Victorian fairings: Ornament and gifts made cheaply of painted plaster as holiday momentoes, or won as prizes at fairgrounds.

'A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.' A common saying from a famous Chinese proverb. From Chapter 24 of the _Tao Te Ching,_ a classical C6th Chinese text by Laozi, though often wrongly attributed to Confucius.

The Mall: Named after the game of Pall Mall, which used to be played here This straight and broad ceremonial London avenue, laid in red tarmac to represent a red carpet and closed at weekends, Bank Holidays and for special events, leads from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square via Admiralty Arch. It is easy to walk from there across St James Park to Whitehall, the heart of British government.


	10. Chapter 10

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 10

 _Confidence placed in another often prompts confidence in return_

 _(Livy)_

"God lord! You made me jump! How did you get in here?"

"Back door was open."

"No, it wasn't."

"Unlocked, then."

"No it wasn't."

"No. It wasn't."

There was a brief, charged silence.

The only light in the rear sitting room of the house in Tblisi's Old Town came from the flickering images of a tennis match on the television. Hilary Weatherstone had been relaxing quietly with a Patiala peg of whisky after a busy day, wife and children gone to bed much earlier.

But he leapt to his feet in something like fear when he became aware of a dark presence standing in the doorway. Especially when that presence politely cleared it's throat to finally draw attention to itself.

"You actually picked the door lock to get in here? Bloody cheek, don't you think?"

"Not at all. Didn't want to announce my presence to anyone. It's a bit late for a social call. But your locks are terribly outdated, Hilary. I recommend you update them. Can't compromise the security of our deputy ambassador, now can we?"

Sherlock Holmes stepped silently forward, intent gaze on Hilary Weatherstone, and the diplomat found himself awkwardly stepping back a pace and feeling very inadequate suddenly. Feeling old and fat and short, and out of favour.

"Worried about something, Hilary?"

"N-no. What should I be worrying about? And what are you doing here Sherlock? Does anyone know you are here?"

"I am here to be told what you did not tell me last time. What you kept from me."

The consulting detective was pacing a slow circle around him, around the sofa Hilary Weatherstone had been lying on. Now, standing, the diplomat found himself pivoting on his heels to keep the commanding presence of the younger, taller and far more handsome man in his sight.

Knight in a panther's skin he thought; decidedly fanciful. ' _He could have sunk in an abyss, or flown to heaven's gate, and through.'_ The quotation came to his mind, unbidden.

It was a disconcerting thing to be facing in his own house. But then again, Sherlock Holmes was a disconcerting presence. From the set of his shoulders to the tilt of his head. Discomforting levels of concentration and perception, and today, the sense of a low burn of anger. Turned his way.

"Whatever do you think I have kept from you?"

"Oh, Hilary. As if you don't know. An awful lot about the siege you should have told me and shown me from the first. B **ut** didn't. Why was that? Am I supposed to believe you were such a sensitive soul, protecting Nico? When you were actually protecting your own back."

"I don't know what you mean." The response was arch and slightly sulky: the class toady discovered in his plotting.

"Seconds in command. Deputies. Sidekicks. They always see more and know more than anyone realises. So what did you see and know about the siege, Hilary? About the circumstances of it? About your boss?"

"Think about that for a few minutes. While you are showing me the scene of crime photographs you kept from me before. Chop chop, Hilary. Boot up your computer and let me see."

"The photographs are in boxes at the Embassy…"

"But you will have copied them onto your computer. In case you needed them. Well, now you do."

The diplomat did not answer, but sighed and moved from the sitting room to his study, Sherlock Holmes close behind.

As the computer started up, he found some words.

"I was doing what I thought was best. Didn't want to see Nico upset. Not again."

"Sologashvili is a professional. He would have lived with it. I am a professional. And am very annoyed."

The calm voice was somehow more threatening than threats.

"Here," Hilary Weatherstone finally rose from the captain's chair in front of his desk, vacating it for the detective. Who sat down to go through the many official scene of crime photographs in fierce and silent concentration as if the diplomat no longer existed.

After some moments Hilary Weatherstone finally spoke. "Anything I can get you?"

"Tea," was the terse instruction. A pause, then: "And chocolate biscuits."

He took his time in the kitchen. It was a good excuse to be out of the detective's orbit. To try and gather his shaky wits and practise excuses. But after those long minutes hiding he knew he had to return. And this time Sherlock Holmes looked up at him.

"Complicated. Differences in photographs before and after the terrorist skirmish that followed the breaking of the siege. Sensible thing to do. But another layer of problem. That should, in fact, help me."

"Yes."

The briefest of replies brought forth another narrow frown that seemed to see inside a soul.

"Look at this," the command drew Hilary Weatherstone close to his side.

"AGRA. Part of it, at least. Mary - Ro Adams - under a pile of other bodies in a doorway," He remembered Nia Sologashvili's words as he spoke, words that had concentrated his searching, "Can't see her face, but couldn't mistake something as telling as size four military boots."

The diplomat peered, but could not see the differences the detective saw. "Typical arrangement of casualties in the aftermath of concussion following explosion. Yes. And then the same scene three hours later. See?

"Do you see what I see? No tiny boots or short legs there, now. But she has gone all the same. Must have slowly wriggled out backwards when she came round without shifting the bodies on top of her too much. One of them was also AGRA, I think. Probably the German. In the chaos no-one would have noticed she had gone. Hard to tell even when you know."

He nodded; sent the entire file to his own email without asking,, without comment. This time Hilary Weatherstone offered a brief prayer for mercy but knew better than to object.

"And here are the photos of Tamora you censored. Has Nico seen these? Ever?"

"I don't know. I never dared ask. I wasn't part of the investigation. I am a bureaucrat, not an investigator. They upset me. I knew her, you see. And of course I knew the Ambassador even better…"

The both looked at the photographs.

Taken in the quiet aftermath beyond the fear and tumult of the siege being broken, the awfulness of that aftermath, the tableau before them was both tragic and raw.

The photographer must have been lying on the parquet floor to capture what should have been sanctuary beneath the large table in the centre of the main hall. But was carnage instead.

A slim man with dark hair was lying to one side, limbs tossed anyhow, quite dead. Colin Travers, holidaying husband of Madame Ambassador. She was mere inches away from him, sprawled under the table, facing the camera.

A surprised look on her face; plumply pretty but undistinguished English rose features, long brown hair parted to the side, eyes blank in death.

Shoulders covered in a grey blanket, marked with congealed blood from exit wounds darkening the wool. Blood on her torso, on the floor beneath her. Shot in the back, the messy site of the exit wound obliterating her front.

One hand was still braced on the floor, the other outstretched….held by the woman facing her.

Auburn red hair, tumbling in soft curls around her shoulders. Perfect bone structure, slight laughter lines around bright blue eyes with long lashes. A looker. The little mark between her eyes could have been overlooked as a mole, perhaps.

Except that mark was the entry point of a single bullet. She would have been dead before even knowing she had been hit, one chipped pink nailed hand reaching forward to Julia Tregarron.

"Can't you stop peering at those photos?" Hilary Weatherstone asked peevishly "So many photos of that scene is nauseous overkill…"

"No. Not overkill. Thorough.." Cold grey eyes slid his way. "What makes you so uncomfortable about these photographs, Hilary? Especially when there are far more traumatic ones on file?"

There was a brief silence.

"You don't like to see your dead boss in the same shot as her husband and her friend. Why is that? Because it shows they were together? Communicating before they were shot?"

The diplomat moved uncomfortably, but did not reply.

"Oh, Hilary. You know as well as I do that not showing me these photographs had nothing to do with shielding Nico from upset: he would have already seen Tamora dead, formally identified her body. These photographs would not have upset him any more than he was already. So - why?… Ah. I see."

He pointed at the screen.

"It looks to me as if they were both killed with a single shot, that passed through Tregarron to make a fluke hit on Tamora. Looks more accurate and cold blooded than it was. The intent was to kill Tregarron, then. Tamora was just collateral damage. In the wrong place at the wrong time.

"But it was…..Oh. I see. Their closeness. Their intimacy in death disturbed you. Yes?"

"Look at them…." Hilary Weatherstone managed. "Dying together. Holding hands."

Sherlock Holmes made no immediate comment; sifted through photographs of the same scene taken at several different angles, brought them all up onto the screen together.

"Not holding hands, no. Look closer. At the angles. Tamora has Tregarron by the wrist. Tregarron's right hand is clenched. Was she resisting Tamora? Arguing, perhaps? Is she holding something? Or is that clenched fist just rigormortis? " he pointed at another photograph. "In this later shot her fingers are uncurled. Somewhat awkwardly, but still…."

He finally turned back to the diplomat.

"There was a rumour, wasn't there? That Tregarron was having an affair? Attractive older woman, husband safely away in Britain most of the time. No sex, and a need for sex. 'While the cat's away,' and all that…..

"You jumped to the conclusion it was Tamora? That Julia Tregarron was having an affair with Tamora Sologashvili? You decided that solely on the basis of these photographs, on a spiteful little rumour? The fact that the two were together a great deal in the weeks beforehand? Planning the exhibition? Yes?"

"How? Did you know? How could you possibly know?"

"Because that is who I am, and what I do," the tone was arch, dismissive. "Doesn't take a great brain to work that one out. Knowing the petty minds of most people."

"Despite the anger, despite the black ops team breaking the siege….there was something else going on here. Something involving the women, something so urgent between them it took priority over their own safety. Now, whatever could that have been? What was it, Hilary?"

"I don't know"

"Clearly. If the best you could suggest was an affair between the women then you weren't using much imagination, were you?"

He paused, frozen, still staring at the computer screen.

"There is a proper puzzle here. Far too complex for your tiny brain."

"No need to be so bloody offensive, Holmes."

"Ah, but there is, Hilary. Manners maketh man and allow truth to be obscured. That's what good manners are about. The lies and obfuscations of social interaction. Useful. Boring."

He clicked off the computer with a melodramatic flick of the wrist.

"Well, that's been a very interesting chat, Hilary. But mustn't take up any more of your time, you really do need your beauty sleep." He gave the diplomat his falsest, brightest smile.

"I need you to access all the forensic reports. Get them to me Every single one, Hilary. Got that?" He waited for the grudging, hesitant nod. " Good man. Running along now," he added. Paused.

Put a hand to Hilary Weatherstone's face fleetingly as he passed by.

"But if you hear anything abut the siege, about Margaret Thatcher, about Tamora or Julia or anything at all really….you will let me know, won't you? I would be terribly grateful."

Hilary Weatherstone felt the whisper of threat behind the smile and the words. Opened his mouth to speak, but too late. His nocturnal visitor had gone.

o0o0o

The dark and narrow underground office Mycroft Holmes claimed for his own within the Diogenes Club was the place he went when he needed solitude and secrecy.

When he needed to assimilate facts and make decisions no-one else need to know. When he wanted more peace and quiet than his official office in Whitehall offered. Or when he needed to meet people he may not want to be seen meeting.

It amused him that his secret space had once been the private wine store of the head butler when the Diogenes building has been a great gentrified house. Had been 13, London.

Which was where his younger brother found him after he left David and Emma Welsborough. Deep in thought and not happy with those thoughts.

He entered the office without knocking. Took off his coat, slung it deliberately onto the back of a chair and began to pace in front of the desk. His brother looked up from the file he was engrossed in and said nothing. Watched tension and thought process bleed out.

"You have just returned from the Welsborough's," Mycroft said eventually, when he could stand the silence no longer. "You had the death of the boy solved before you even left Baker Street So why bother going to his parents? And what is exercising your little grey cells now, brother?"

So one brother told the other about Charlie Welsborough and his father's shrine to Margaret Thatcher. About the missing plaster bust.

" Don't know what that means," Mycroft confessed. "It seems random. Disconnected."

"I thought that too," his younger brother admitted. "I now think I was wrong. A conclusion based on insufficient data. But the Welsborough's have no connection with Tblisi and the boy acquired the Thatcher bust. He died a natural death in a freak incident. Not murder nor malice aforethought."

"A great pity. That would have been helpful."

"Indeed. But this case is like that. Red herrings. Something not coming into focus. And Thatcher is a complication I could do without."

"I met her once," Mycroft offered.

"Thatcher?"

"Rather arrogant, I thought."

" _You_ thought that?"

"I know." A low chuckle at the irony of it. Takes one to know one, they both thought, but did not need to say. "She was always arrogant, you know. No discernible sense of humour, everyone said. Even her Cabinet ministers. Not a single friend at school. Apart from her headmistress…..what does that say about her?"

"Shut up, do. Really not interested."

Mycroft Holmes was miles away in memory when his brother sighed, pressed the mobile phone into his hand to distract him, and watched the British government look down at the screen automatically without expression.

"Why am I looking at this?" he asked in vague frustration, that familiar curl of a superior smile never reaching his eyes.

His brother sighed again, clicked his tongue to the back of his teeth, momentarily looked at the ceiling as if seeking tolerance and strength.

"That's her," his younger brother said with deliberate patience as if talking to a child. "John and Mary's baby."

"Oh, I see." Mycroft Holmes lifted an eyebrow, trying to read any feeling reaching across the desk to him without looking to check. " Yes," he drawled. "Looks very…fully functioning."

He slanted a quick glance, seeing his younger brother's distraction, his exasperated frown. And for a moment the British Government was at a loss. Perhaps what his brother had intended? Or was it? Sherlock had always been hard to read as far as human responses were concerned; especially since he had delivered the Watson's girl child in the back of a car.

" Is that really the best you can do?" The scorn was as quiet and controlled as it was deliberate. But what Mycroft Holmes liked least about that attitude was it was so far removed from disdain for the commonplace he and his brother usually shared.

"Sorry," he said automatically, not sounding sorry at all. "I've never been very good with them."

"Babies?"

"Humans." He clarified with asperity.

Sherlock Holmes heard the disdain in his brother's words: stepped forward to take his phone from unresisting fingers and return it to his jacket inner pocket.

He did not show in expression or movement if he regretted sharing such a human failing; baby pictures. Or why he had done it.

 _Back to business. Why did I just do that? To Mycroft, of all people? To impress him? Or myself? Demonstrate before the toughest audience of all how well I could mock human softness of heart? Make them all think I am growing and weakening. Being emotional; being human. If I fool Mycroft I can fool anyone_

 _Fool John and Mary. Then they will think I am growing a heart and lending it to them. Let me in closer. Let me find the flaw in the machine, the handle I need to turn the players in this game until they become automata._

 _But first….Snap back from sentiment, it has no place here. Concentrate! Now; hit the ground running….._

"Moriarty, he snapped. "Did he have any connection with Thatcher? Any interest in her?"

"Why on earth would he?" Mycroft Holmes demanded, wrong footed, surprised.

"I don't know. You tell me." Irreverent, sing song. Calm, mocking patience. Two could play at that game, the younger brother thought.. _My turn!_

Mycroft sniffed in irritation, yet opened a folder already on the desk before him. And his brother saw that; how Moriarty was also in his brother's mind.

 _Did such a nebulous case as this, lost in the past, unresolved, bring Moriarty to Mycroft's mind also? Not just me, then? Interesting. Why was it interesting?_

Watched Mycroft refer to his notes. The younger brother wondered in passing if the older really needed to read, whether he knew all about James Moriarty's after their extensive interviews. Whether he also suspected the Irishman was still alive…

"In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in South Korea, and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgia's." Mycroft read. Looked up, a brief basilisk glare.. "Which is still missing by the way. In case you feel like applying yourself to something practical."

Their eyes met and clashed. The sarcasm was not veiled. Sherlock Holmes breathed out tension through his nose.

 _He is not to know how deep I am in the midst of this affair of that bloody pearl! Not so_ _much as a whisper to warn him I am on my way back to Tblisi._

"It's a pearl. Get another one," he dismissed haughtily.

Mycroft Holmes heard the carelessness and rolled his eyes, frustrated in his purpose.. Yet his brother did not heed his words, nor bother rising to the bait. He was looking thoughtfully to one side, concentrating.

"I have studied political assassinations around that time. Several in the areas one would expect - Africa, Asia. The last assassination in Georgia was three years before the siege - Guram Sharadze, historian and politician. Trying to form yet another breakaway political movement. Surely not the sort of petty move Moriarty would bother with."

"Indeed," his younger brother agreed. "But there's something important about this, the Thatcher and Tblisi connection. Or Moriarty,,,,," he said with total concentration, eyes and mind elsewhere.

"Thatcher? Moriarty? Which? Both? In the past? Or now?

"I'm sure." The reply seemed irrelevant, unconnected, deep in his own head, unheeding. "Maybe it's Moriarty. Maybe it's not. But something's coming."

Mycroft Holmes frowned and leant forward, peering into his brothers eyes and folding his hands with precision on the desk top.

 _By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes….._ Mycroft Holmes was not given to quoting Shakespeare. But then, neither was his brother. He frowned.

"Are you having a premonition, brother mine?"

The question was unexpected, delivered with less scorn than it should have been. Sherlock Holmes controlled his expression except for a little blink, and stared at his brother; expecting more. But there was nothing, simply a level stare. Genuinely enquiring.

"The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other," he expounded. The reply was a quotation, but he didn't bother seeking to remember where from. "What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If to every strand of quivering data you could attenuate, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics."

Which engendered a brief smile of understanding.

"Appointment in Samarra."

"I'm sorry?"

"The merchant who can't outrun death. You always hated that story as a child. Less keen on predestination back then."

Sherlock Holmes narrowed his eyes.

"I'm not sure I like it now," he admitted.

Picked up his coat from the chair, put it on. Back to his brother, apparently not listening.

"You wrote your own version, as I remember," Mycroft continued, on more comfortable ground finally. "Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine. Then he becomes a pirate for some reason."

No reaction, not even a smile of shared childhood memory.

"Goodnight Mycroft." He turned to leave. "Keep me informed."

"Of what?"

"Absolutely no idea."

The mellow baritone voice drifted back into the office. Arch, mannered, offhand.

Mycroft listened to the disappearing footsteps, heard the silence falling back into place. He looked down at the folder in front of him and pushed it away with distaste..

o0o0o

He was reminded of that conversation as he walked from Hilary Weatherstone's house to Nico Sologashvili's a couple of miles from one side of the old town to the other, through streets busy and bustling with life even at such an early hour of the morning.

From the Digenes Club he had crossed several courtyards to Lady Smallwood's office. Just a quick visit while he was close by, the answer to a single question.

He had pushed his way imperiously past Elizabeth's elderly secretary without a second glance ( _past retirement age; still fit and capable, good genetics; widowed; cat owner; oh - and likes Mivvi ice lollies, he recalled from the Magnussen debriefing.)_

 _And I daresay proud of her silent efficiency, her devotion to her boss, her cherished special status as Lady Smallwood's second in command. Watched cricket and rugby and enjoyed the sight of fit young men exerting themselves in a socially acceptable setting; probably bit the heads off jelly babies with the sort of vicious snap only the pussycats saw…_

 _Got flustered when challenged on the minutiae of life. Felt out of control. Pathetic. Life happened._

"Yes, William," Lady Smallwood had agreed when he asked the question of her. "Mycroft selected the operatives for the Tblisi mission and laid down their contract; I gave their final briefing and signed off the paperwork."

"As I suspected. You still feel any guilt for authorising such a disastrous mission? So many deaths?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, her expression never changing.

"Of course not. Dealing with the siege was simply reactive. It had to be broken, and AGRA was the best option available at the time. Fortunes of war, balance of probability and a failed result that could never have been predicted.

"A regrettable episode. The United Kingdom does not lose ambassadors like that. Not in modern times."

"You believe all that bureaucratic bollocks?"

"Of course I do. How dare you question my judgement?"

"Because that's my job. As well you know. Why are you being so snippy? You threw this problem at me to solve, after all."

"I did not throw it at you. I happened to mention it in passing…."

"And Mycroft is chivvying. While neither of you are helping!"

"You never need help. You repulse help."

"Quite so. Normally. But this is a problem and a mystery deep within the very bowels of government bureaucracy. Your bowels."

The words were calculated to knee jerk a reaction. But her nerves and her response were stronger than that.

"If I knew anything - could have done anything - this would have been resolved long ago. You do know that. Which is why you are on your own in this. A ghost in the machine. Looking inside from the outside. To see what no one else can.

She paused. "This has always been a matter of the utmost delicacy. So no one else for this but you. No-one."

The customary steely look. The ice maiden lift of the head. The implacable stance he recognised only too well.

"Thank you so much for your support."

She gave him a blank look and turned away from his words. The secretary offered a silent sympathetic shrug, which he ignored. Lady Smallwood was still looking out the window, her shoulders a tight forbidding line, when he left.

o0o0o

Things did not get any better. He returned to Baker Street feeling a childish sense of betrayal, tried to expunge the feeling and what caused it: what that instinct might mean.

He knew he needed to return to Tblisi; ask questions that could only be asked face to face, to read hesitancy and body language to determine truth. To access historic files. He would have time to pick up his passport and get to the airport. There was no need to inform anyone of his plans.

There and back before anyone would notice him gone. It was clear he was on his own with this investigation; although why he was on his own was not totally clear, nor had it been justified. Not that that mattered. Or was anything new.

' _I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.' The determination from Kipling kept repeating in his head._

 _Eidectic memory was a curse. That very first line of the Just So fable - 'Originally all the tame animals were wild, but especially the Cat; he walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.' Yes. He had read that line aged eight, and had never forgotten it. Mycroft was at Eton and he was at prep school, already long conditioned to being alone._

 _But now the second sentence of the story had relevance too.' The man was wild too, until he met the Woman'_

 _John and Mary. How much simpler life would be without such ordinary additional obligation to John and Mary. Stop! It is what it is! No regrets, no blame game, no looking back. Think only of the end of the tale: 'the Cat keeps his bargain. But on moonlit nights he roams the woods or the roofs, walking by his wild lone.'_

 _Dammit! Analogies are for fools….!_

o0o0o

John Watson let himself quietly into 221 Baker Street, his key rasping softy in the lock.

Hr had left the white plastic carrier bag beside Mrs Hudson's hall chair, and it was a matter of ten steps from door to chair, the action of seconds to stoop to pick it up, to retreat the way he had come. He was quietness personified: the visit to the Welsborough's home had unsettled him, and returning to town with Lestrade had been an awkward journey, ('OK, John. You should know. What's up with him? I've never seen him as off beam as today….') and meant he had forgotten his shopping for Rosie completely.

It was only later he realised what he had forgotten, when the supplies were needed, when he had cursed his unusual absentmindedness, so he gave his excuses to Mary and headed for the Tube. It would take less than an hour to get to Baker Street and back, all hopefully before Rosie woke for her bedtime feed and needed the nappies and the only cream that cleared her nappy rash, and they could not get from Boots.

He was congratulating himself on his speed and had the black front door open again when something that was not a sound made him halt, and turn and look up the stairs in the direction of 221B.

A tall familiar figure stood silently on the half landing, a mere silhouette in the semi darkness, leaning back into the turn in the stairs, seeking invisibility..

"Oh! Hello! You startled me. Didn't expect to see you there," John Watson spluttered. Into the silence. "Just came to collect Rosie's shopping. Left it here while we were at the Welsborough's. Then forgot all about it in the rush….."

No answer. No movement.

"Get all that thinking done, then? In the taxi? I assume you went off to talk to Mycroft….?"

A tiny shift of suppressed irritation.

"You were a bit weird earlier. Is everything OK? Sherlock?"

He took two steps closer to the stairs. A closeness that provoked an answer.

"Fine."

"You sure?"

He put out a hand and clicked on the stairwell light. They both blinked, vision adjusting.

John Watson could see the consulting detective was wearing his Belstaff and scarf.

"Going out?"

"Yes. Need to be somewhere."

Instead of clattering down the stairs in his usual whirlwind of movement, pushing past and away, Sherlock Holmes remained where he was, and John Watson found himself walking gently forward, slowly up the stairs to meet him. It felt, he thought fleetingly, like approaching a wild animal.

"Sure you're OK? Only you were very strange earlier. And you don't look…..right," he finished lamely.

"There's nothing wrong with me!"

"I'm not saying there is. Just that you aren't - weren't - quite yourself. And I'll help - I'd like to help - if I can."

"Don't need help. Thank you. After all, you have said it yourself You are not my doctor."

John Watson bite back a quick retort. He had asked for that.

"Are you using again?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Haughty head carriage, superior sniff of impatience..

"Ridiculous to notice? Or ridiculous to even ask?"

"Just stop it. I haven't time for this."

"Why?"

"Told you. Have to be somewhere."

"Sherlock. You're being a bit strange."

"I am strange."

"No, you're not. That's just something you hide behind." He too a deep breath. "Look: there's no easy way to say this. I'm worried about you. Since we got back from Aalburg you've been really off. Not your usual self. Distracted. Bit wobbly Not as immaculate as usual. I do try to warn you. About trying to do too much. Spinning too many plates."

"Thank you. Your concern is noted." The tone could not be bleaker.

"And doing that thing as well." He was frustrated now. It was showing "Talking at me in clichés."

No reply except a tight smile. The sort of physical and mental withdrawal he had not seen since their first days together in Baker Street.

"And I have no idea what you are thinking. It's unsettling."

"Then stop thinking about it. About me. Time you did."

"Oh, God. Not that again. You are my friend, Sherlock. Probably my only friend."

"You don't need a friend. Me as a friend. You have a wife. She takes precedence."

"I've told you - we've both told you - you are beyond friend, you are family."

For the first time Sherlock Holmes looked down properly, and met the concerned eyes close to him.

"How much do you talk to your wife, John? About what she was before she became Mary Watson? About what she used to do?"

"I - we - we don't. I told her; when I forgave her for deceiving me. I never read the AGRA memory stick. I couldn't face it. Didn't want to know. Told her. Her past was her own affair. Only her future was mine. Ours."

"Bit short-sighted of you, don't you think? Isn't it best to know the truth?"

"I know the truth," he was too vehement, he could hear it; pulled back into honesty, however shaming. "But some of it I just can't face."

"What? Her capacity to kill you? And walk away?"

"No. That she nearly killed you. And lives with the shame of that every day."

"Shame? What shame? She is a professional, she should know better." He snatched his arm away as John Watson reached for it. "And I don't ask that from her. You must know."

"I do know. What I don't know is how you seem to understand her. Forgive, even. Give every impression of liking her. Do you like her, Sherlock? Are you attracted to her?"

 _Oh. There is something insecure in this oh-so-perfect relationship. Or there would be no creeping little jealousies on show, especially near me._

 _Think, John! You know Mary. Safe with you, shielded, being allowed to be as ordinary as she wants to be. You know me. You know I do not allow myself to be attracted to anyone…._

"No, forget that. Not fair of me to ask," he hurried to amend his words. Sherlock Holmes watched the man who had been his best friend for so long deliberately pull back from a brink of his own making. Change the subject completely. "Mary says you had a gorgeous girl with you in 221B the other day; a girl who was about to kiss you and go for your body if she hadn't happened to walk in at the wrong time. Hope she didn't disturb anything too pleasant?"

He read and understood John Watson's deflection. Appreciated it. Nodded briefly, smiled a little. Shrugged a shoulder.

"That would be telling," he said. And John Watson smiled at him. Transferred the carrier bag from hand to hand.

 _So keen to think of me in his vision of happy. Being with another person. As a sexual animal. Having a close and loving relationship. The sort of relationship he liked to think his own was. With Mary. Established, loving, safe and steady. Oh, John._

"Well, this has been a lovely chat, but I really must be off." Hs voice sounded arch and artificial, even to himself. He watched John Watson's eyes narrow, but be was pleased to have turned the conversation from himself, from her; from what she really was. Everything John Watson did not want to see.

"And you need to get home. Your offspring will need those supplies before too long Or else you would not have come back to retrieve them until tomorrow."

"True." A hand rested briefly on his arm as the father remembered his other responsibilities. "Will we see you tomorrow?"

"No. Busy. I'll be in touch,"

They walked down the stairs together, through the big black door.

Outside they headed in opposite directions. To home. To Tblisi. Did not bid each other farewell. Each lost in their own thoughts.

o0o0o

The front door of the old town house opened as he approached it, the tall dark silhouette of Nico Sologashvili beckoning him inside. He had been expected.

"Hilary rang to tell you I was coming," Sherlock Holmes said by way of greeting as he stepped inside.

Yes. But I already knew you were coming. Nia said." the Georgian closed the door behind them. The house was quiet, a single lamp burning in the hall.

"And did your sister say why I would be coming to see you?"

In answer he turned away and into a small sitting room to the left, knowing the detective would follow.

Two sofas facing each other with a fireplace in between, the orange glow of a fire. The host gesturing to the guest to sit.

"Where is your luggage? I assumed you were coming to stay the night? As before."

"I would not presume to invite myself. This a flying visit. I intend to catch the morning flight back to London. But first…..you seem very alert. Keyed up. What has happened?"

The Georgian grinned. The rare expression created laughter lines and took years off his stern face.

"Nothing to worry you, my friend. ArtAime has just had good victory. A treasure trove of 23 important stolen paintings have been found. Will be returned to their owners, to the world. The press release goes out tomorrow. It will be a sensation!"

He could hardly sit still, he was so highly emotionally charged.

"Freud, Bacon, Munch, Zoffany…all stolen from homes and museums in Belgium. The thief worked in contract catering; spent his entire career denying any interest in art, whilst coveting and stealing. All displayed in his flat, his own private art gallery. Thorough detective paperwork found him to be a common temporary staffing denominator at all places involved. He has admitted his deeds. The biggest single recovery in the history of the organisation."

Nico Sologashvili grinned. "Such things makes the blood flow in the veins all the way to the heart. You know this feeling, I suspect?"

"Congratulations, Nico."

"Thank you. We work hard. Sometimes we are lucky." He rose from the sofa, all energy and impulse. Moved to a console table and the silver tray there, poured himself a brandy, another for Sherlock Holmes without asking. Handed him a generously filled taster's glass which the detective took without comment and placed on the side table without tasting.

"You won't find your precious black pearl that way," he said. Comment, not criticism.

"You trying to ruin my mood?"

Nico Sologashvili shot him a dark look, but sat back with a satisfied sigh and took a long pull of the spirit.

"So. Here you are again. What can I do for you this time, Sherlock? Or is it Mr Potter today?

"Neither. Both. Depends how much you hate me by the time I leave."

"And why would I hate you?"

"Because I need answers to questions you do not want to answer."

"I am intrigued. So ask."

The grin and the goodwill lingered. Advantage needed to be taken.

"And destroy your mellow mood?"

"Why not? If you feel you have some advantage tonight, use it while you can."

He was leaning back into the sofa, glass in one hand, the other hooked casually behind his head. Dressed in white linen shirt and dark chinos, he looked relaxed, comfortable buoyant. But his eyes were guarded.

And Sherlock Holmes knew he needed to unsettle that look, that habitual assumption of superiority.

 _Into battle._

"Your wife died in the embassy siege. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Straight for the jugular. Mycroft would be proud of you. Well…. I assumed you would have been briefed before you reached me. That you had already been told."

"So Mycroft knew? About Tamora?"

"Mycroft has always known. I did not lie when I told you he is my friend. When I realised you did not know….you might say I ran out of nerve."

"Nerve? You? Try again."

"So."

He sat forward, focussed and intent now, brandy glass between his hands.

"Your reputation goes before you, my friend. Formidable and ruthless. A machine. As I would expect as the brother of your brother. But to meet you, see you in action….I realised you are more than your brother. With a talent for what he calls leg work. And realised how accurate your reputation is.

"With anyone else I would have confessed. Told all, tried for human empathy, get you onside. But I saw the human approach would not work. Not with you.

"Bleeding my grief over you would never get you on my side, end my nightmare .On the contrary. It might well have turned you away in disgust instead. Repulsed by my emotion. My obsession."

"You accuse me of being a machine and then tell me you feared I would be subjective? Somewhat contradictory."

"There's being human for you. I am too close to this to be consistent in my thinking. I could not take any risk that would harm my Tamora's memory. Her reputation.."

He shuffled forward on the seat, dark eyes intent and burning. Put the glass in his hand aside.

"Because you know something, Sherlock Holmes? Grief at a death like my Tamora's, a death without reason, or understanding, without culprit or closure….the agony only increases with every passing year.

"You know our great national poem, _The knight In The Panther's Skin?_ There is a line in that to sum up my Tamora: '" _she made the sun seem flawed, the sun that imitated her.'"_

There was a silence that lasted a beat too long. He risked a glance and saw Sherlock Holmes' lift his head, lip curled in something like distaste.

"Sentimental claptrap. I expect better of you, Sirius. I am really not interested in any of that sob stuff. Back to reality. What was Tamora's connection to the siege?

Sherlock Holmes watched the older man control his hurt, hold onto his anger at having his feelings dismissed with such scorn; make a visible effort, offended by both words and attitude.

 _Good! Come down from your high horse, Nico. I am hurt and angry too - at being poorly briefed, facts kept from me, at being treated like a child by you because I am only Mycroft's younger brother._

 _Dismissed by you as an investigator. Too young and detached. Too alien, too deficient in humanity and understanding. How dare you judge me and waste my time, Sirius? How dare you?_

" My wife, like my sister, held a degree in fine arts," Nico Sologashvilli's voice - _pay attention, stop thinking! -_ was hard, tight. "That was how we met - because of Nia. Georgian cultural history was Tamora's abiding passion.

"The exhibition was her brainchild. To reflect the way Georgia was restablishing her own identity after throwing off the shackles of being a Russian satellite for far too long.

"She saw the time was right for a celebration of our culture, our nation. Inspired by the influence of the Wardrops in opening up Georgian culture to the west via England, she naturally took her idea to the new UK ambassador, Julia Tregarron. Julia immediately saw the importance, the ambition, of what could be achieved. They bubbled with ideas between them. It was wonderful to see."

His face softened as he recalled those heady days.

"What did you think of Julia Tregarron?"

"A strong and determined woman. A person who got things done. Her strength of purpose seemed merely fitting at the time. It was only later…"

"Did you ever doubt her? Suspect her motives? Her relationship with your wife?"

There was a dangerous pause for judgement.

"You are very sharp. Too sharp. Ever cut yourself?"

He ignored his sarcasm thrown back at him. Saw only too well how his hard tone was drawing out truth at speed..

"Hilary Weatherstone is under the impression your wife and the Ambassador were having an affair. That the siege lasted so long only because there was some lover's tiff between them thwarting diplomacy. So when they died it was because they were arguing between themselves about something….which distracted them from self preservation."

" _What?"_

Nico Sologashvili was on his feet. The urbane façade surging into real passion, real anger, raw pain. Fists clenched, eyes burning. Towering over Sherlock Holmes as if about to pummel him to pulp. With an effort Sherlock Holmes stayed coolly where he was, did not rise to face down that explosive response to his words.

"Grow up, Nico," he drawled. Hoping to diffuse the anger focused upon him. "Behave yourself. None of this emotional vomit impresses me. Just tell me."

 _Oh. My impatience is showing. And my repulsion of emotion. Not good. This is a strong man and his face has just folded inwards. Bugger. He might stop talking, stop telling truths now…OK - push more buttons Different buttons….._

"You have a bad mouth, Sherlock. My Tamora was beautiful. Perfect. Kind and clever Ah, you give me a sceptical look. What else would you expect me to say? But it was true. I had a failed marriage before I found her. I know the difference. And we were a team. The same passions, the same dreams." he dragged in air and controlled his fists with an effort..

"What you are suggesting is….disgusting."

"Is it, though? It would make sense of the way they died. Together, hands linked. Posed as if they were outside the world. Despite the danger. It makes sense. And if it makes sense as a theory then it is the first lead we have had to answer the entire situation. Do you see?"

"No! It does _not_ make sense, Sherlock!"

"And yet," he drawled in reply " And yet you kept facts from me when I was here before. Wasted my time and effort. What did you think that would achieve?"

"I don't know." He stepped closer; no less angry, frustrated in his fear, but still talking. "I have waited so long for an answer. If anyone will get an answer, it is you: I realised that as soon as I met you."

He flapped his hands in frustration.

"But then I thought…what if he finds something I dare not - do not - want to know? Will knowing be worse than not knowing? I had no answer and was in despair. Because of you.

"You lack compassion to see this thing as you should …you are too hard. Too harsh. A machine. I warned you then.

"Where is your humanity, Sherlock Holmes? Hiding in the same place Mycroft hides his? Because - both of you are seriously fucked up. Oh yes you get the job done. But at a cost. And in this - Tamora and me are part of the cost."

"Stop it, Nico. I am not here to heal your bleeding heart.."

"What are you here for? To solve the mystery of the siege? Recover the Black Pearl? Or destroy my past and my future?

"Oh, for God's sake! I am sick of hearing about that bloody pearl! It is not important!"

"Yes it is!" Shouting now, at the end of his tether, Nico Sologashvili reached down to grab his upper arms and hauled Sherlock Holmes to his feet. Shook the man in his grip, two short, fierce off balancing thrusts and pulls. "And Tamora is! The two most important things in that bloody siege - and you don't give a damn!"

He did not resist or argue. Let himself be manhandled. Too absorbed in encouraging words from the other man's mouth to worry about his own physical safety. Listened.

"You don't answer." Another shake. "You want to think the Black Pearl is some cheap trinket, not a unique, uniquely valuable, footnote to history."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to. To you this is all just stuff. Dreadful in itself. What is worse is your disdain for the human cost of the siege. Your disdain for love and being human is written all over your face. Haughty, supercilious…."

 _Spit out that bile, Nico. Read me right, read me wrong. Keep bloody talking_

"I apologise, but my face is made that way. It fronts a high functioning sociopath. A freak. That's me. Hello. My face should warn the unwary to deal with me fast and true when they need my help. You know my brother; so you should know that about me, Nico"

They were inches apart, and the air sparked electricity between them.. He leaned back against Nico Sologahvili's hands, trying to release the tight grip on his biceps without resorting to self defence.

"My God, Sherlock. You actually believe that bullshit? Sounds more like Mycroft to me. I've told you before - be human. Make yourself a better man and a better investigator."

No reply, but a disdainful twitch of the head. The older man drew a deep breath. Calmer, yet still angry; confident again, seeing Sherlock Holmes' stance as weakness not wisdom, and he chose to read the younger man's silence as admission of that.

"You need to learn about life, Sherlock. And damn me if I won't teach you, whether you want to learn or not."

"Oh, yes? Teach me about what you call love? Or just teach me a lesson?"

The Georgian tugged remorselessly, pulling the younger man in towards him. Saw a way to use his own anger and his own passion to convince Sherlock Holmes to look elsewhere, look deeper..

"That's up to you. You ask what I see," he continued, voice a seductive purr beyond the anger. "I see a man not handsome, but beautiful. With a face that could belong to a god. I see a body supple, almost boyish, yet strong. I see a poise that comes of intelligence, not the assumed arrogance."

"Utter bollocks," was the charmless, dismissive reply.

The Georgian kept talking as if the scathing words had never been spoken.

"I see an attractive man with no clue he is attractive. Nor how attractive that very lack of self awareness is….."

"This is a waste of breath. Shut up. Let me go."

 _Stop it, Nico! I don't need this._

"I still burn with love for Tamora, even so long without her. I am not a sad case looking for her replacement. Gender is not the secret of attraction, Sherlock. It is the fire, the spirit of a person. Their intellect and the challenge of reaching down and finding another's heart, if only for a little time. Even your heart."

Sherlock Holmes jerked backwards. But did not break the firm hold he was in.

 _Let me go. Do not make me….._

"I talk, yet you do not listen," Nico Sologashvili pleaded. "What must I do to make you understand?"

He shook the detective again. Eye to eye, neither man yielding. Nico Sologashvili looked into grey eyes, fascinated by the brown speck he saw over the iris of the right eye Such an intimate and human physical flaw in such a beautiful frame.

But perhaps that very flaw was an indication that there was a human being behind the physical armour? That external beauty reflected beauty within? Wanting to know encouraged him to press forward.

"Oh, I am angry with you - your hard heart, your vicious tongue, your filthy mind . But you are a challenge, Sherlock Holmes. .

"How do I make you feel emotion and take the human element seriously? The people who died have people who loved them, who need closure only you can deliver. You must learn feeling is not just theory. Must I seduce you to teach you emotion?."

"No." A single word of protest.

Sologashvili was taller and older. Broader and stronger. Could not himself decide if he was angry and punishing, or pitying and tutoring. Being in the same room as Sherlock Holmes did that to a person, he thought.

Regardless, he stepped in even closer, finally shifted his arms to settle his hands around Sherlock Holmes' waist. Persuasive, almost possessive. Dominant. He paused.

Waited for physical withdrawal, for resistance that did not come. The slim frame under his hands held still, the body warm, gently exuding the fresh clinical aroma of _L'Eau de Monsieur._

"I do hope you are joking, Nico." The baritone was deep and mellow. Mildly censorious.

"Look at me, Sherlock."

The patrician head rose, slanted backwards with chin tilted high as if in defiance, yet the half clenched hands remained low and still, carefully not touching. Their eyes met.

"Is this really an attempt at seduction? Or Georgian over familiarity? The determination of the Sologashvili family to get what it wants, regardless of anyone else? Your very intimate version of a power game?"

The cool voice was apparently unmoved, but the Georgian could have sworn he felt a shallow tremor under the skin he held firm; a tell of fear, was it? Fear of intimacy? Unfamiliarity? Arousal, even?

He suddenly realised he had no idea of Sherlock Holmes' sexual inclination; or if, like his brother, he admitted none. But he knew something of the boy's history, what he had endured in the past. In Sri Lanka, on the streets of London. Could only guess at what had happened since. What happened during his nocturnal wanderings in Tblisi.

He knew the boy was no blushing virgin. To plumb what he really was could only help ….

Despite the anger still simmering, he waited, tightened his grip on the younger man's waist, knowing it was becoming uncomfortable. Waited; to read the detective's response to his proximity and intent. To see if there really was a human being inside the formidable façade that was Sherlock Holmes.

He was disappointed when the voice that came to him remained scornful and remorseless. Pushing him to the edge of his intent, his own self control.

"The sister tries to seduce me in London; the brother tries it on here in Tblisi. I cannot believe either of you really want to fornicate with me for any purpose other than thinking it will weaken me and strengthen your hand.. Give you some advantage that lives only in your heads by seeking vulnerability in me. Control of me. Thinking that persisting, getting me naked, will give you advantage over me. How pathetic."

"I can seduce you, Sherlock And if it helps my cause, then I will."

The hard, mirthless laugh told it's own tragedy.

"Better men and women than you have tried. I know the power of sex; how it is works and is wielded. How empty a victory sexual domination is. You can tell me nothing about the humiliation of it, Nico."

The Georgian smiled at him then, regardless of a sudden pity that shafted into his heart. Leaned in. Breath ghosting warm over the boy's mobile mouth. But the words coming from it did not stop speaking despite the encroaching physicality.

"But what do you know of sex as love and not just transaction, little boy?"

The face opposite him became even paler, but did not answer directly.

"You are a handsome man, Nico. Do those looks and charm normally get you whatever you want?" Sherlock Holmes tried to lift his head away from the face relentlessly approaching his. Could not pull back far enough. "Even me? Melt to your touch? Go willingly to your bed? Well, well."

He heard the involuntary quick intake of breath from the Georgian, who smiled then as he shifted forward. Feeling victory approaching.

Watched Sherlock Holmes dip his head and drop his shoulders. Thawing towards temptation? Submission?

The lean face inched closer to Nico Sologashvili's. Nuzzled it, ever so slightly. Allowed a smile to move against the planes of the other face.

 _Submission it is then? Will that work?_

"First you and then Nia, is that the plan?" the voice was softer now, almost caressing. Still relentless. "Is this your famous Georgian hospitality, Nico? Or should I say - Sirius? Because you are the brightest star in the sky, and you think everyone is your satellite?"

 _Mouth and brain still working, then. Must not allow anger and hurt to influence me. Fight the magnetism of Nico Sologashvili, his open emotion._

 _I do not like emotion, why is everyone in the world trying to make me emotional these days? Is it trendy? Some sort of weird self help thing? Like mindfulness, whatever that is?. Or a plot?_

 _Stop it. I really, really, do not like being pulled into actions I will regret_.

 _But I need to see how far Nico will go with this; his level of resolve. How that can help me._

Sherlock Holmes deliberately relaxed his shoulders and his posture; let his breathing grow ragged. Natural. Tilted his head slightly to one side, to see better. A curl of dark hair fell across his forehead, and he could feel the Georgian tempted to stroke it aside. But to do so he would have to let go with one hand, cede some control..

"Has anyone ever told you to just shut up and let things happen?" asked the older man, his voice a low growl. "Relax. Be seduced, _simp atiuri mamak atsi. Nateli bich'i."_ Handsome man. Bright boy.

"I am not a boy. Never have been. So you …you really intend to try and fuck me?" Sherlock Holmes breathed into his ear. Something strange and sensual and hesitant in his voice now that the other man could not read.

He looked back into those pale shuttered eyes. Saw no fear or anger, no unwillingness. Light, rapid blinks. A tiny frown crinkling between the eyebrows.

"Would that be so hard?" he asked.

He bent his head lower, brushed his face along the side of a cool pale face with sharp cheekbones

"Not….not at all."

Finally, the hands so tight around his waist relaxed, released. Sherlock Holmes resisted the temptation to rub circulation back into the muscles.

The other man deliberately dropped his hands, rubbed his thumbs down and into Sherlock Holmes' hip bones through the fine wool and silk mix of the dark navy suit trousers. Drew those hips closer to himself. Let the feeling of the younger man into his blood.

"Hilary's theory about Tamora and Julia Tregarron…"

"Will you stop talking? Let me concentrate? On you." For a moment his hands stilled, Felt hard warmth against him, a slight lift of those hips towards him. "I tell you this. Tamora was all woman and only woman. She had eyes and body for none but me. I will show you…"

"Clearly you're not as particular as she was, then?"

Both men stilled. A point of no return. Looked at each other across the very narrow space between them.

"I am not _metraki,"_ Nico Sologashvili stated: not gay. "But for you ….I can make an exception."

"Kind of you," Sherlock Holmes murmured. "Is that because you were never able to seduce my brother?"

A tension breaking roar of laughter.

"If he was not your brother, I would ask if you had ever met him! I swear to you I have never even considered loving Mycroft: I do not even know his inclination."

"Don't ask me to enlighten you. We are brothers, not confidants." A frown quirked his features for a moment.

"Would he be peeved? To know I had had you?"

A pause for thought, a slight quirk of humour on those mobile lips.

"He might lift an eyebrow…..but you haven't had me, Nico. Not yet."

The eyes twinkled then, rapidly looked away and down. But the other man had noticed, and smiled in response.

"I am working on it," was the reply. Then another Rustaveli quotation: " _'Heart mind and thought depend one upon another. Where heart goes, the others also go and follow it._ _A man deprived of heart cannot play the man. He is chased forth from men.'_ Do you play the man? Do you have a heart inside you, Sherlock?"

"I have been reliably informed, on several occasions, that I do not. Sorry."

"I don't believe that." Intrigued now more than angry. But still committed.

"Please yourself."

The off hand words were in contradiction to his actions. The detective shifted forward a little, dipped his head to deliver a rasp of teeth against Nico Sologashvili's right earlobe.

Who jumped a little, surprised at the assertive move. Grey eyes blinked rapidly at him close up, and large gentle hands crept up his arms. The Georgian was unable to repress a shiver of anticipation that went through him as lips slowly traced their way from his ear across his jaw to his mouth.

Almost of their own volition his arms crept around Sherlock Holmes' back. While Sherlock Holmes' hands lifted slowly to his shoulders, softly moving upwards.

"S _hemogevie,"_ Nico Sologashvili muttered. A Georgian endearment, untranslatable. But something closest to the phrase 'I encircle you.'

" _Dim mak_ ," Sherlock Holmes whispered in reply, his hands moving carefully and gently up the long masculine throat. Slowly closed his eyes so his long lashes fluttered against the other man's face. Relaxing it, over sensitising.

"What?" the Georgian asked. "That is not Georgian. I do not understand…."

"No. Not Georgian. Japanese. Hmmn. Parotid lymph node….."

"What….?"

" Hush now." Two words, a low seductive whisper.

He placed his lips with care onto Nico Sologashvili's. and pushed sweetly into a kiss. A proper kiss. Open mouthed, tongue pushing forward, so gently along the edge of his teeth, seeking the other's tongue.

"Sssshhhush," he breathed into the Georgian. "Ssshhush."

Cupped his hands gently around the other man's jaw. Sucked a deep breath around the alien mouth, and breathed softly out. And deliberately arched his index fingers upwards and out.

When he snapped his eyes back open they were too close to Nico Sologashvili's for him to notice the tiny movement. If only he had had his own eyes open to see that rather than succumbing to the kiss.

So. Deep breath. Concentrate.

So now!

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's Notes:**

Patiala Peg: a measure of whisky that is the proper 'two finger' measure; the space between index and little finger of a closed hand.

 _The Knight In The Panthers Skin:_ Quotes from Georgia's epic mediaeval poem by Shoto Rustaveli comes from a modern translation. A great tale, beautifully told, and well worth reading.

'Probably the German.' The German member of the AGRA team was Gabriel (Gratz)

Number 13 London. Sadly fictitious. Famous, however, is Number One, London - now known as Apsley House, formerly home to the Duke of Wellington. 200 years ago it was the first house in London beyond the tollgate into the city, hence the number. Now 149, Piccadilly. Grade I listed, owned by English Heritage and open to the public.

The building used as the Diogenes Club in _Sherlock_ is actually 10, Carlton Terrace, home to the British Academy. The Diogenes first appears in ACD canon in the short story _The Greek Interpreter._ In the books, The Diogenes is meant to be opposite Mycroft's rooms on Pall Mall.

Guram Sharadze: The assassination to which Mycroft refers was a real political killing in Tblisi in 2007.

Mivvi ice lollies: An old English favourite ice cream, with a fruit outer encasing vanilla ice cream, on a stick. First made by Lyons (Lyons Maid defunct ice cream brand) and now Nestles.

The Cat That Walked By Himself: One of the most famous Rudyard Kipling Just So stories. First published in 1902 and considered a reflection of Kipling's wife.. Critic Rosalind Meyer observed that the other animals mentioned are included to reflect husband as lover, defender and provider, while the Cat mirrors whatever else is in him, and while the Woman may never domesticate the Cat- she is obliged to live with it, as it comes with all the others!


	11. Chapter 11

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 11

' _A prince should be slow to believe and to act; nor should he be too easily alarmed by his own fears, and should proceed moderately and with prudence and humanity, so that an excess of confidence may not make him incautious, nor too much mistrust make him intolerant.'_

 _(Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince)_

He went straight down as if poleaxed: not so much as a gasp of surprise nor grunt of protest. Sherlock Holmes caught him around the waist, arms slipping up the torso, clutching, as he fell. Nico Sologashvili was taller and broader, and heavier than he looked. The detective braced himself, hauled the other man up and across and back onto the sofa he had so recently occupied.

Wiped another man's saliva out of his mouth with the back of his hand and a shudder of disgust. Stood up, checked the side of the neck for a pulse, let out a heavy sigh of relief. Still strong and steady, thank God.

Picked up his own untouched brandy, sucked in a large mouthful that made him gag but removed the taste of another person's lips on his own, then poured the rest carefully into the unconscious mouth opposite him, so most of the spirit slopped down; over the chin, neck, shirt. Wiped the emptied glass clean and dry with an immaculate cotton handkerchief from his trouser pocket, and put it back in position on the galley tray.

Pulled on the thin blue gloves from his jacket pocket. Tucked a cushion under the lolling head, slung a rug across the splayed knees, looked down at Nico Sologashvili while waiting scant seconds for his breathing to settle, his hands to steady.

To use the dangerous Chinese death touch, the _dim-mak_ , had been a gamble. A terrible gamble. He had never used the blow in hot blood before- a skill acquired during his travels whilst two years dead, from a mercenary turned Nyingma Buddhist priest at the part derelict earthquake scarred Pemako Chung monastery in the lost places of Medog county, a remote and little known land neither Tibet nor China.

But the tuition had been intense; and if he made a mistake in his learning, the master would demonstrate; so he knew from experience he had ten or fifteen minutes of Nico Sologashvili's absence to do what he needed before the Georgian awoke.

 _Act. Quickly. Don't think. Do what must be done, find what is needed. Just be out of the house before he comes round._

The big computer in the office was for work and business; what he was looking for would most probably be in the room they were in, the private refuge of quiet relaxation. A quick search found a laptop; out of casual sight if not quite hidden, in a cupboard under a window seat.

Separate computer for private and family business, then? Good. Just as expected. The password override tool went from his pocket and into a dock at the side, quickly opened the laptop and revealed its secrets. A scan of contents showed private correspondence, ArtAime communications, family paperwork.

The secrets and the intimacies of a complex man. Not the art expert, the businessman nor the agent. Just the man behind Sirius that was Nico. No time to investigate further as yet. But also there - so simple to locate, but perhaps nothing more than the guileless treasure of a man who was proud to wear his heart on his sleeve - a file just labelled: _Tamora._

A cursory click inside showed many files within the file; and it was the work of a moment to copy the whole thing to an email address set up especially for the purpose; unidentifiable, untraceable, bounced into infinity and back through a number of dark servers. Then remove all evidence of that laptop activity.

Powered down and returned it The computer gadget back into the pocket, with the nitrile gloves. For a moment he stood, looking down at Nico Sologashvili, still unconscious but breathing steadily, face peaceful.

Picked up the brandy decanter, brought it to the side table and tipped it artfully on it's side, watched a drip form from the imperfect seal between stopper and lip, to pool onto the pristine walnut surface. Put the almost empty glass closer to hand.

 _The scene is set. The curtain rises….._

Let himself out of the house with open, slightly drunken body language: his departure looking casual, totally normal, for the benefit of the security cameras.

Because only after he had left the house did his host drink himself unconscious. High on celebrating ArtAime's latest success, Obviously.

o0o0o

The breakfast flight to Heathrow was half empty. The only other person in his row a harassed businessman ( _electronics? Wife, three children, dog. Black Labrador. Predictable._ ) They nodded politely at each other in the way of seasoned travellers. The businessman muttered a greeting (E _stuary English. Delightful_ ) and Sherlock Holmes answered with a conversation stopping stream of an obscure German dialect.

The businessman settled himself two seats away and promptly went to sleep.

So he did not see Sherlock Holmes finally allow the tension bleed from his shoulders. Turn away towards the window, crush his hands between his thighs, curve inwards and clamp down hard to contain the shaking. Let himself briefly fall apart to shortcut putting himself back together by the time he returned to London.

After so long looking for it, finally finding there really was a Thatcher connection, had been earthshaking and unexpected.

Part of him, he realised, had hoped it was all a wild goose chase; that the connections he feared - connections that led him always back to Mary Watson - were nothing more than his cynicism and thoroughness, nothing at all to do with his instincts or his logic.

He had chosen to concentrate on the black pearl first rather than the siege itself; not only to avoid the direct Mary connection for as long a possible, but also because he knew there was something about the pearl, something itching beneath his skin, some awareness that as much as he scoffed about it to others, kept nudging his consciousness.

What he needed most was facts. Data. And at least two people had been keeping that from him.

With more official information prised from Hilary Weatherstone, more personal information stolen from Nico Sologashvili, perhaps he would finally have enough material to piece it all together. Make sense of the mystery, solve the insolvable.

He was, he knew, alone in this venture. Alone as always. Elizabeth was certainly being economical with the truth, despite everything. Did she feel guilty about involving him in the Magnusson episode which had started all this? Was that why she had taken such pains to cover up the truth about Magnussen's death? Contrived an acceptable alternative explanation? Instructed him to play high wide and handsome as the official story was revealed, the video recording fudged, the D Notice issued?

Was this the result of being grief stricken over her husband's suicide - due to Magnussen's attempted blackmail rather than his own illness? Did she regret the past and all it's connotations? And did that mean there were decisions taken at the time of the siege she now regretted, was ashamed of? Found inexplicable, even?

And then there was Mycroft. Haughty and above the fray, as ever. Was he feigning ignorance to deny their sibling connection, belie professional doubts that could bring an endd to the investigations? Would the head of someone in high authority roll if so? Someone like Mycroft? So had Mycroft introduced Sirius to the fray as help - or as hindrance?

What kind of help? What kind of hindrance?

Mycroft had a devious mind and a cold heart, especially when dealing with affairs closest to the heart and efficacy of government; events never explained nor expiated. And which here involved a failed armed mission and a legendary artefact. And everything seemed to point too close to home.

This case was not just facts, he knew that. There was nuance here he did not yet know or a, nuance that was important. Nuance that perhaps only Hilary and Nico held in their hands, fine detail that carried weight, factors he could not yet see. The devil was always in the detail. And something told him the detail would contain the reveal.

Hilary was the classic underling diplomat; conscientious but not overbright, who would provide answers to the best of his ability if he felt it politic, but would block progress if he didn't, yet could neither differentiate nor initiate. Sherlock could do with more helpfulness and more imagination from him; and hoped all the official paperwork he had claimed from Hilary Weatherstone's computer would reveal more than the man himself had.

And Sirius. What about Sirius? Being that rare animal - a friend of Mycroft's - was in itself suspect. But why had Mycroft brought Nico Sologashvili into the mix? To help or to hinder?

The man seemed uniquely talented and uniquely placed with a foot in several worlds; how did this make him pivotal to the Tblisi incident? Pivotal in his own right….or because of his wife? Her involvement, her influence, her position?

Or because of whatever had caused her death? And that of the ambassador. Was being friend and colleague integral or accidental to what had occurred? Or even both at once?

And as events had rolled forward, what was the continuing connection with the siege? What had both Sirius and his sister Nia - far from an innocent bystander - have to do with keeping interest in the siege alive?.

How was it both brother and sister has confessed - and attempted to act upon - their apparent attraction to Sherlock Holmes? What was that about? Sibling rivalry, perhaps? It would not be natural for either of them to be genuinely attracted to him: so what degree of influence and manipulation had either or both expected from their attempts at seduction? And what would have happened next if he had succumbed?

The arrival at 221B of Mary Watson had saved him from Nia. (Or had it? What could have been learnt from Dr Ingorkva in the throes of passion and pillow talk? What might he have missed? What could he have learnt from the encounter? Something Mary Watson might not have wanted him to hear?)

And then there was Nico himself. Nico, who had proved more than helpful, less than tactful. Who had pushed Sherlock Holmes towards emotion and sentiment because he said it would be good for him - personally as well as professionally.

Was that truth or a manoeuvre? Something to distract, demean, destroy? Something to wrong foot him, kill his confidence, his judgement?

Was seducing Sherlock Holmes a dalliance, mere competition between siblings, or a mission born from grief and passion? Or a distraction? But a distraction from what? And a distraction for whom?

Nico had withheld knowledge Nia had hinted about. They both knew more than they were saying. So what had both their attempted seductions of him been about?

Nia's attempt had seemed simply sexual; yet she could clearly have any man she wanted, while he was not attractive, he knew. So why him? Unless there was some ulterior motive?

Nico had shown ulterior motive: to both find and to obfuscate his late wife's role in the art exhibition, the siege, any subterfuge. What was her place in the life and work of Julia Tregarron?

Nico attempted to seduce him to prove a point and to punish at first. Punish the machine that was Sherlock Holmes as if being that machine was a problem in itself, a problem separate to being under his scrutiny . To demonstrate the greater power of his own personality and sexuality, as if he, Sherlock Holmes, was a fumbling virgin to be toyed with and dominated by sheer force of that personality alone.

Which was stupid. Misjudgement and misapplication of facts and reality. For Sherlock Holmes knew about sex. The power of it, the dominance and submission of it, the pain and the shame and the gain. The self containment that could be shattered by it. The pride and the privacy that could be breached. The shackles sex could load onto a soul.

He knew it, did not want it, certainly did not need it. But Nico had threatened to cross those boundaries, to step wilfully into emotion and base passion, and to try to take Sherlock Holmes to that place with him; to try and prove that there was more to sex than power play and pain management, bullying and bestiality.

Sherlock Holmes did not want to go there. But he knew how sexual pain and domination went. It was only when Nico's intimate power game turned from anger to heat…than was when role playing stopped and reality and real fear began.

Nico Sologashvili, angry then ardent and physically aroused, was quickly breaking all those barriers: which was the last thing Sherlock Holmes needed to contend with, and had to fight off without giving physical or emotional damage, ruining such a fruitful professional connection.

Reluctant to react in any way and give Sirius learning and leverage, he was physically too close to fight, emotionally too close to repel. Nico was drawing rapidly too close to losing self control, to the sex act itself, to reason with, so Sherlock Holmes accepted he had only one defence left: a single and stupefying blow that should lay the older man out for a few minutes without warning or fear of recourse. And a blow which would - should - also make him forget the circumstances that had led up to it.

In his panic and need to stop a sexual coupling he neither wanted nor needed, Sherlock Holmes had nevertheless tried to gauge the Georgian's mood and determination, his self restraint.

Lips and hands told of the older man's accelerating lust. The endearment ' _shemogevi' - I enclose you -_ added to the awareness Nico was losing physical control in his desire for sex. And loss of English?

Unusually distressed, with something anyone else might describe as fear screaming in his head, he had seemed to submit, pandered to Nico and responded. Solely to position himself to stop this senseless seduction; the classic move of stepping back a pace before delivering a roundhouse right. But doing that with something more dangerous, more subtle.

So he spoke a warning into Nico Sologashvili's ear- _dim mak._

An agent with the experience of Sirius would know of the legendary death blow those two simple words described; heard it, known it, should have registered the warning and pulled himself back from the brink. But instead Nico had barely heard, ignored the words, had continued to kiss and began to devour with hands and lips.

Trying to avoid confrontation or a blow (equally damaging) Sherlock Holmes swallowed hard and tried again.

 _Japanese,_ he said. When the move was actually Chinese and one of many 'death touch' strikes so simple, in essence, even a child could do them. Except a child would probably kill, and that to make the strike work - to temporarily close down the brain by a carefully calculated blow against the parotid lymph node - it had to be applied with speed, concentration and rare precision.

Nico must have heard - and would certainlyhave known that. Should have responded and pulled back. Anyone would, surely? When the sex encroaching had nothing to do with sadism, or power play or anger or revenge. Surely desire, just desire, was controllable? When the act meant nothing but attraction and sex?

And yet…. Not even Sirius was listening, but doing. Or preparing to do.

Despite both the warnings he had given Nico. Saying what he would do - telling truth - to a man past hearing. He would have to deliver a double blow that needed precision and commitment of cold professional calculation. Sherlock Holmes pulled a hard breath; and now knew he had no alternative. His brain went cold, but he was prepared now.

 _Nico should have known the difference between Japanese and Chinese - yet so many people did confuse Chinese with Japanese culture. As art expert and trained agent Nico should have been beyond all that. Must have been so intent on sexual conquest that his reactions had passed into lizard brain territory, into the purely physical._

 _Oh God. Perhaps he had not had sex since Tamora died?_

 _Those vital tells, those clues ignored, told - no, demanded - should stop Nico; stop him here and now. Before rape or something theoretically so much less, but emotionally so much more, happened._

 _Nico was in process of a sexual act which was absorbing the whole of him; taking his pain of loss and his lust to Sherlock Holmes in the earnest misapprehension he was teaching the younger man how to love and be loved._

 _And so: two co-ordinated little blows of great precision. 'It is not the dog in the fight that wins, but the fight in the dog,' he had been told repeatedly as he has been taught some of the practises of dim mak: the death touch, and he had been intrigued to learn the physical and mental discipline of it at a time when his own responses were heightened, with the freedom of being dead to the world._

 _Steeling himself to deliver the blow had been hard; perhaps the hardest thing he had ever chosen to do. Sex with Nico would have been an acceptable sacrifice. As a tool, as a bargaining position, as a lever. But not as an act of sexual education or healing. Not as a revelation of himself, his inner world, his heart, Not ever._

 _Emotion. Sentiment. Self revelation. Exposure - physical, mental, intellectual, emotional - expressed to another. No._

Yet he had come so close to killing someone he respected; someone who was a friend of his brother: someone who might yet hold a key to the solution of this case. Someone who was honourable, unusual, someone who had suffered and himself needed to be made whole again.

So for the time being Sherlock Holmes sat alone and pieced himself and his actions back together. Debriefed himself. Looked at all the viable alternatives. Knew he had done what he had to, and damn the consequences. And that one other thing that was self preservation.

By the time he left the aeroplane he had achieved some sort of justification if not peace. And was ready for the new files on his laptop, to be analysed and reveal their secrets.

Take him closer to the heart of Tblisi, the British Embassy. To the heart of AGRA and Mary Watson.

o0o0o

He was almost surprised no-one had noticed his absence overnight. No note pushed under the door of 221B, no sarcastic text from his brother or emails from elsewhere demanding his immediate attention: just acres of paperwork dropped into the inbox of the new email identity he had created especially to accept and hold such sensitive material.

Without sleep and without food he finally took refuge in half dozing over tea and toast with a cursory look at the material he would need to dissect more thoroughly for answers to his questions; he was sure there would be something to offer a key to the narrative of the embassy siege.

Answers so close he could almost smell them, see them. The answers were there, they just needed finding, refining.

But he was wrong about one thing. Someone had noticed he had been away.

Scanning the forensic reports, he had scrabbled about under piles of disgarded _New Science_ magazines to find the landline telephone, which he used rarely these days.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said into the receiver.

"Where have you been? I tried to ring you last night and there was no reply."

"Out. Back now. What do you want?"

The call made his words terse, made him frown, put him on his guard.

 _No time or energy for this. Whatever 'this' is._

There was a pause, a stutter.

"Well, Sounds silly now.. But….." She was hesitant. And Mary Watson was rarely hesitant.

"What's happened?" Sharply, to make her concentrate.

She laughed down the phone. The laughter held a bitter, slightly hysterical edge.

"Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing, actually. And that's the problem."

"What's the problem?"

"Hard to say, really. But I've got to talk to someone, or I swear I'll go mad."

"Not me. Your husband. Your friends. A therapist."

"Shut up. You or no-one. Minding each other's backs, remember?"

He was silenced then; it was her agreement, not really his. Pointless saying so, waited for her to speak.

"I'm going out of my mind, Sherlock." This time the voice was tiny, apologetic. Honest.

"Baby blues. Every new mother has it to some degree, apparently. Hormonal change after childbirth. I prescribe a glass of something alcoholic, anti depressants….."

"It's not that. You know it's not that." Her voice was level, determined, quite sane.

 _And yes. She's right. I do know. Always known. What I had always feared._

"Yes," he agreed. "I know it's not that."

"I love John. I love Rosie. I need both of them and miss them horribly if they are not by my side. But - how dare I say this to anyone but you? I am bored out of my mind.

Bringing up a baby is horrid. No sleep. Always covered in sick or shit. Twenty four seven care."

"That's the deal. It's called motherhood."

"I know that, you bloody fool! Only I thought I could handle it. The drudgery, the boredom. All that self sacrifice. I'm a nurse; I've seen hundreds of other women do this. But they're…."

"Not you. Not like you. They are ordinary. They don't want or expect anything other than what other women do. While you - you need more. Danger, excitement. The buzz. Something extra. Something other women don't have. Wouldn't want. Couldn't face" he paused then delivered the words she needed to hear, to apply the brakes, to show he understood only too well.

"The ability to kill. The yearning for challenge and danger and drama. Murder and motherhood really don't mix." He could not have kept the cynical edge out of his voice if he had tried.

There was silence down the line. And then she sighed. "Your honesty is like a drug. Dark and addictive. What would I do without you to give me reality checks?"

"Just the same as you are doing now. Doing the right thing, Being a good mother and wife. Keeping your mouth shut rather than hurting them."

"It's killing me."

"Hard luck," There was no comfort in his words. "You made this situation. I can't get you out of it."

"I don't want out!" she exclaimed. "I just need….something more."

"Cases to solve? Targets to hit? Identities to assume?" He clicked his tongue at her frustration. "You are wearing another identity right now, remember? Possibly your last identity."

"Trying to make a goose walk over my grave? Predicting the future?" she challenged.

"I often wonder," he replied thoughtfully, "What you would have done if I had been less of a sociopath and stayed downstairs to attend to the unconscious girl I had just proposed marriage to. Sent John upstairs to investigate the sounds in Magnussen's penthouse instead of going myself.

"Would you have shot your husband the way you shot me? And if you had - how different things would have been.."

"You are a bastard sometimes."

"Always. You demanded a ludicrous promise from me. That, if necessary, I would kill you to protect John and Rosamund from you, from your past playing catch-up. If you asked me to."

"For the best of reasons."

"Whatever they are. Something noble, I suppose. To save their lives. Still doesn't mean I will do it."

"Doesn't mean I will ask you." Courage and humour were back in her voice.

"No? But you are about to ask something of me."

"I needed to talk to someone with a brain. Prove I can still talk and make sense."

"Talk to John."

"He's my husband and he loves me. Makes allowances. Is sympathetic. Shares the chore. Carries enough of the load. Not fair to moan at him, poor lamb."

"But it is OK to moan at me."

"And ask favours. After all you did make a vow," she teased lightly, and he waited for what was to come. "Please, Sherlock. Can't I help you? Sometimes? Somehow? With cases?"

"No. Absolutely not. If John found out we were working together, that I was putting you in any sort of danger, he would kill me."

"Cold cases, then. Help with those cold case you do for Lestrade. That's just brains and paperwork, isn't it? I need something like that. Take my mind off babies, at least sometimes. For sanity. Use my skills. Prove I can still think."

"Absolutely not. I have a special arrangement with Scotland Yard. I will not jeopardise that. You know I can't let anyone else be involved."

There was a sound like a sob, then she said: " Sorry. Foolish to think you would help. Shouldn't have turned to you, should I?"

"No. But if I could help, I would."

He heard the words come out of his mouth, yet did not know if he meant them. He had never been one to offer empathy and reassurance before…yet here he was. Doing that. Dangerous ground. Dangerous precedent.

"I know. Silly of me to ask. Pipedream Act of desperation. Panic Weakness. Something….."

"You rang at times you knew John would be at work, using the landline so the calls would not show on your mobile should he pick it up and see you had been calling Calling me…..and ask why." He paused, bit his lip, did not add: ' _He is already suspicious'._ Said instead: _"_ You don't want him to know you are feeling less than the perfect wife and mother. And sharing that doubt with me instead of with him,"

Her silence was an admission in itself.

"If I think of something…." he began.

"You will have second thoughts and not tell me," she predicted. "So I can't then hurt John by doing that; showing he and Rosie just aren't enough…."

"Stop it. I loathe self pity."

"John is coming over this afternoon to update the blog. Please don't tell him about this conversation."

"Why should I?"

And he put the telephone down before she could say another word..

.

o0o0o

The note had been stuck to the fridge door with a tag end of sticky tape. Written in John Watson's almost indecipherable doctor's script.

Times for appointments that afternoon. For a Mr Kingsley and DI Hopkins .

Never heard of Kingsley. Probably not worth the effort. John was susceptible to a sob story or inarticulate victim. Knew Hopkins only too well. Both were most likely offering tedious and boring cases. He pinched his mouth into a thin line, objecting to being organised, uncertain at how to stop this .

John had been running his diary again. Something he knew was neither wanted nor needef, but he persisted doing. Saying he was worried about the pressure Sherlock was putting himself under, chasing the internet for cases and clues, Thatcher and Tblisi. _Spinning plates._

Putting simple cases under his nose as if to distract him from his true purpose. As if he feared what Sherlock Holmes might otherwise find. And there was nothing Sherlock Holmes could say to stop him, because then they would have to discuss matters neither cared to bring into the light.

Mary and her past. Mary and her present. Mary and her future. Mary and her unsettled state of mind, Mary trying to be ordinary. When ordinary was the last word anyone would ever use to describe …..whoever and whatever she really was.

Sherlock Holmes understood all this, but was reluctant to process it, apply reason and instinct. Even before he analysed, he was aware there was no happy solution to be found Not without huge sacrifices regardless of the course of action finally decided. How it could determine all their futures.

But despite his dogged determination to offer distracting, feeble and time consuming cases, there was much about John Watson he did not really know or recognise these days.

Constantly tired and short tempered, distracted and internalised. Sherlock Holmes knew fatherhood did that to a man - there had been that terse and telling exchange with Lestrade at the top of the stairs which seemed to mainly involve lack of sleep rather than paternal devotion, and there had certainly been times since Watson was born when her godfather had seen both her parents fast asleep at either end of the sofa as soon as they stopped actually moving. Reactions any new parent would recognise and work through.

But something more seemed to be troubling John Watson than that. He avoided Sherlock Holmes' eyes, did his best not to be in the same room alone and together. It might have been simple embarrassment at his explosive and violent reaction to finding his best friend and his wife together, in what could have easily appeared a compromising position, when in the hospital; guilt at not delivering his own daughter; at any manner of insecurities and imagined woes. He should be happy, at the height of achievement for a conventional life - new wife and child, useful career and pleasant home.

And yet. Violence never seemed far from the surface these days. A pinched mouth and veiled eyes. Hunched shoulders. A whisky bottle in the kitchen. Snappy remarks and sharp responses like puffs of steam from a pressure cooker.

Sherlock Holmes did not ask what was bothering his friend, feeling - hoping - that the source was merely domestic pressure, something beyond his ken, outside his remit. Fatherhood. Marriage. Compromise,

And John Watson did not tell. It was as if - despite the protestations of family and friendship - he was blaming the consulting detective for something,( _Anything? Everything? Can't tell. Don't want to know_ ) Refusing to engage directly. but as if taking a low level of petty revenge.

Sharp, barbed comments, judgments. Helping Mrs Hudson with her soduku puzzle book rather than detecting; substituting a balloon for himself and inferring the detective never noticed the presence or the absence of his blogger these days. _As if_ .

A profusion of superficial cases; the man drowned in sand, the engineer and his missing thumb, the murderous brothers who were not twins. The cliché of the limbless corpse in the railway trunk, the trivial canary trainer…..was this a revenge or a therapy to throw more and more plate to be spun?

 _Push him harder, make him stronger ….always Mycroft's maxim. Yours, too, John?_

Such as the two appointments made for him today without consultation. Kingsley's case would be something feeble and barely a two. He just knew it.

Hopkins - well, Hopkins was going through a tedious phase of bringing him anything novel if not actually interesting she thought and hoped would catch his eye. Perhaps her recent promotion was responsible, perhaps she needed reassurance as well as assistance.

Perhaps it really was a fact, as explained by Lestrade with much laughter, that she had a crush on him and would not be dissuaded by jokes or active warnings. Tedious Very tedious. He didn't believe a word of it; if anything, she wanted to pick his brains then peddle the results as her own.

He could hear her outside now, making stilted conversation with Lestrade. Pretending a relationship that did not exist; bringing the mystery of the Borgia pearl to him as if an offering.

"Interpol thinks the Borgia Pearl trail leads to London," she told Lestrade. Bored with Kingsley, he heard her words distinctly through the door. Was hard pressed not to tell her all about the Black Pearl of the Borgia's - because she would never believe him if he did - and do nothing more than take the edge off his anger by throwing the door open and demand they be QUIET!

As if he did not notice her fawning; as if her fawning did not irritate him. As if there was anything he did not already know about the Pearl; except his conviction that if it really was in London he would find it.

As if Kingsley was not the idiot he had anticipated, with his fetish for women's underwear and his smudged Japanese Anako tattoo and his feeble minded self absorption. The man's stupidity, even when faced with a ludicrous story about his wife being a spy and assassin ( _Get out of my head! Let me think!)_ meant he was thrown out in minutes.

Overtired, stressed, concentration elsewhere, more important things to do, the Tamora file, the Tblisi forensic report itching to b read and analysed…..and yet here he was having to deal with idiots. Anyone would be short tempered in the circumstances.

The whole thing was ludicrous, and he rose to the challenge. Blistering sarcasm, some ludicrous invective to which he was not even paying attention. Which finally drove John Watson to blurt out: "Are you serious?"

"Of course not."

 _Truth then_. _See if John is on song, in synch, paying proper attention. Reading what he saw and heard. Push in._

"Of course not," he repeated. ."Having fun. While I can."

Almost an aside, those eight words of admission, of confession, of utter truth. They went past John Watson unheeded, and something inside Sherlock Holmes retreated; put itself behind a stone wall and curled up ready to die.

Even then, what might have become a proper conversation was interrupted by Hopkins knocking on the door.

He whirled to meet the intrusion; did she not realise he had heard her discussing the purpose of her visit through the door, even as he was eviscerating and ejecting Kingsley?

"Er….Sherlock?" Yes. Just like the unpopular prefect putting her head round the headmaster's door. Bursting with news and self importance but uncertain of her welcome.

He did not allow her to come any further..

"Borgia Pearl. Boring. Go."

 _Full on sociopath. Yeah, that worked. It always worked._

"Oh! But…." He saw, in his peripheral vision, refusing to even meet her eye, the disappointment on her face and the way she bit her lip. _Pathetic. Not professional._

Go!"

The roar of anger seemed to do the trick. As she retreated he slammed the door so hard it rocked on it's hinges, and this time John Watson did actually flinch at the volume and the bitterness.

The door opened again almost immediately. Lestrade. Frowning, almost uncertain, on the back foot. Used to Sherlock Holmes' mercurial moods, and still determined, despite the vehemence.

"Oh, this had better be good." The scepticism should have been wounding. But Lestrade knew him too well.

Another three steps into the room, forcing the detective to back away. It took more than bad temper to deter a cynical detective inspector. Their eyes met, and Lestrade nodded once.

"Oh, I think you'll like it," was the quietly confident reply.

From the familiar brown paper evidence bag he was carrying he drew out a smaller plastic bag containing something white, something shattered into pieces. Crumbs and shards….and pieces large enough to show a prominent nose, rigid curls, a modelled ear complete with earring.

The remains of Margaret Thatcher.

Sherlock Holmes felt his face freeze, his brain stop, reboot, kick back into gear. He put a hand to the bottom of the plastic bag, hefted the weight of the pieces.

"That is the bust. Is that the bust that was broken?" John Watson finally did the consulting detective's talking for him. As Sherlock Holmes stood stock still. And stared. And computed.

"No. It isn't," Lestrade said with a slightly smug certainty. "It's another one. Different owner, different part of town. You were right."

"This is a…this is a thing," Voice spilled uncertainly out through the force of concentration.. "Something's going on. This is not a coincidence, now is it? The universe is rarely so lazy. Or the subject so specific."

His voice was flat, his eyes fixed on the remain of the plaster bust. There was a charged silence while both Watson and Lestrade looked. And waited

"What's wrong?" asked Lestrade eventually. "I thought you'd be pleased."

"I am pleased."

He may have been pleased, but there was no smile to show it. No nod of understanding No quickfire explanation. No thanks. Just the outer facade of a man whose brain was in overdrive.

"You don't look pleased."

"This is my game face." A pause. He looked intently at the contents of the plastic bag. Lifted his eyes to finally give Lestrade a ghost of a smile. "And the game is on."

Without another word he took Margaret Thatcher into the kitchen. Opened the bag and puts her pieces onto a specimen tray, sat down at the kitchen table beside his microscope.

His focus was complete and excluding, and although Watson and Lestrade were watching closely, he did not speak to them, barely aware of their presence now.

"Another two have been smashed since the Welesborough one," Lestrade explained softly, almost conversationally, as he watched Sherlock Holmes meticulously sort through the pieces, examining each crumb and shard individually, grade it in the tray by size. There was a distracted murmur in reply. So he continued.

"One belonging to Mr Mohandes Hassan….."

"The silk and cloth importer? The Conservative Party money man?"

"The very one."

"Hmn. Another Thatcher shrine in the study-library-man cave, was it? Like Welsborough?"

"Smartarse." Lestrade caught Sherlock Holmes' eye and grinned.

"Identical busts?" John Watson interrupted.

"Looks like it, yeah. " - Lestrade nodded in the direction of the remains being examined so thoroughly. "And this one. To a Doctor Barnicot in Holborn. Three busts in total."

He looked at his watch, said with more than a little distraction: "Doesn't make sense does it? God knows who would want to do something like this…"

"Yeah well, some people have that complex, don't they? An _idee fixe."_ As he spoke he walked pointedly over to Sherlock Holmes. "They obsess over one thing and they can't let it go."

He snagged the barb , but distantly. _Give it up, John. I'm not listening. Not reacting._

Concentrated back down on the remains of the Plaster of Paris bust.

 _Plaster of Paris; Cheap material for a bust of a significant word figure. Test pieces, perhaps? Gypsum plaster, calcium sulphate hemihydrate. Used since ancient times for a multitude of uses - decoration, medicine - named after the proliferation of gypsum mines around Paris._

"No. No good, There were other images of Margaret….." Raised his head, lost in thought, the name temporarily gone due to the inrush of information flooding his brain. "Margaret….?"

"You know who she is!" hissed John Watson exasperated.

"Thatcher…" he continued as if he had not heard. "Present at the first break in. Why would a monomaniac fixate on just one image? Why? What would be special…."

Meticulously picked up another piece of plaster with tweezers, bent down, shoulders hunched, as he spotted something interesting.

"Oooh," Quietly and thoughtfully.

"What?" John Watson leant in, could not see what had caused that involuntary sound.

"Blood. "Just one word; which was enough. To be sure as well as certain, he put the fragment under the microscope, staring. "Quite a bit of it too."

He looked up at Lestrade.

"Was there any injury at the crime scene?"

"No." And checked his watch again

"Then our suspect must have cut himself breaking the bust."

He carefully placed that small piece of plaster into an evidence bag and gave it to Lestrade, who wordlessly tucked it safely into an inner jacket pocket. "Get that tested and grouped for type and DNA origin. As of yesterday. Important. Urgent."

He was on his feet, shrugging himself into his jacket, suddenly all energy and fire.

"Come on."

"Holborn?" checked Lestrade.

"Lambeth"

"Lambeth! Why?"

"To see Toby." He was being smug and terse, and intentionally mystifying. Lestrade and Watson exchanged glances.

"All right. Who?" John Watson gave into his curiosity and asked the question.

"You'll see." The detective was being more than annoying.

"Right. You coming?" John Watson was reaching for his own jacket as he spoke, but Sherlock Holmes gave Lestrade no time to reply.

"No. He's got a lunch date with a brunette forensics officer that he doesn't want to be late for."

"Who told you?" Lestrade asked with his usual brand of slightly peeved resignation.

"The right sleeve of your jacket…longs hairs on the sleeve from being in close proximity," he answered Quirked a brief grin.. "Plus the formaldehyde mixed with your cologne."Pulled a disgusted face as John Watson leant towards the DI to sniff the jacket, not subtly, and then pulled back to look shocked.

A touch, just a touch, of the old Holmes and Watson double act. Sherlock Holmes registered the warmth of that return of form, but did not register it on his face or with words

 _Too soon, too soon. Might be just a fluke._

Gregory Lestrade was always reticent about the frequent chaos of his personal life, and to have an analysis of his hopes dropped so carelessly into an investigation was annoying if not surprising.

"….And your complete inability to stop looking at your watch." A tiny shake of the head. "I'll do this one, George. You take that plaster to Molly and get it analysed….Oh! And have a good time."

"I will."

Lestrade stepped away and onto the landing as Sherlock Holmes picked up his mobile phone and began to type a text message..

 **Busy? SH**

 **Why?** Instantly back.

 **Case. Now.**

 **Me? Really?**

 **No danger. Come. 34, Every Street, Lambeth. Tell the man who answers the door I am on my way."**

"Trust me though," As he typed he turned his head to throw his voice out to Lestrade, still on the landing. "She's not right for you."

Lestrade halted in mid stride, turned back. "What?"

"She's not the one!" Louder, determined.

"Well, thank you, Mystic Meg!" He responded before clattering hurriedly down the stairs and out the door.

"How did you work all that out?" John Watson asked, stepping closer More surprised by the prospect of Sherlock Holmes giving Lestrade personal romantic advice than the mystery of Margaret Thatcher's bust.

Sherlock Holmes was still typing on his phone.

"She's got three children in Rio he doesn't know about," he muttered, offhand and distracted.

"Are you just making this up?"

"Possibly."

Then he, too, turned and left the room, John Watson following behind.

"Who's Toby?" One more question.

"There's a kid I know…." he explained. Pavement, taxi, journey All on autopilot, brain firing, but still talking, with John Watson struggling to keep up. "Hacker. Brilliant hacker, one of the world's best. He got himself into serious trouble with the Americans a couple of years ago He hacked into the Pentagon's security system and I managed to get him off the charge. Therefore he owes me a favour."

"What's that got to do with anything going on now?"

"Dunno. But we might just find out."

Out of the taxi, onto a quiet and pleasant Lambeth back street. Knocked twice on the black front door of an undistinguished Victorian detached corner house.

"So how does that help us?" John Watson asked they waited for someone to answer the door.

"What? Who?"

"Toby the hacker."

"Toby's not the hacker." And that knowing smirk.

"What?"

Before he could reply the door was opened by a chubby and remarkably unattractive young man in dark cargo pants and t shirt. A podgy face, spectacles sliding down his nose, a mass of wild curly hair. But with a grin of remarkable sweetness.

"All right, Craig?"

"All right, Sherlock?"

"Craig's got a dog," Sherlock Holmes said with the air of a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. But what emerged on the front steps was no bunny, but a large, lugubrious bloodhound, lead already attached.

"So I see," observed John Watson, with something approaching his old giggle at the old cliché of the detective and the bloodhound chasing down their prey.

Sherlock bent down and laughed with childlike glee as Toby went to him for a cuddle.

And at that relaxed moment Mary Watson emerged from the house with baby Rosamund in her arms.

"Hiya!" Voice high and bright, pitched a little too loud, hoping to forestall any explosion of anger from her husband.

"Mary! What are you…." He stopped dead, as if he also heard the hectoring tone in his voice. Took a deep breath for calm and control. Made an effort. Wanting just explanation, an answer to the surprise. Nothing more…not really.

"No, we agreed we would never bring Rosie out on a case." He did not want to sound hurt or angry. Just surprised.

"No, exactly. So… She handed the baby to her husband. Unable to kill the light of battle in her eye, the excitement at the very thought of being brought in on a case by their daughter's godfather. His promise to her. And her debt to him. Her promise to her husband abut the care of their child. She gave her baby to her husband with total faith and more than a little professional pride.

"Don't wait up," she instructed lightly. It sounded like a tease. She wanted it to. And then - oh, so casually - Hello Sherlock."

And then he was beaming at her. Clutching the lead of the Toby Dog, as Craig closed the door and left them to it, and looking for all the world as if his heart was in his eyes.

 _We can do this, the four of us. We can be a team. A family. We can be us, and it can work. Mary can control her steely strength, John can control his temper. And I can control….what I must be. Alone. The cat that walks by itself….but now, just sometimes, may welcome companions to my side. Humanity, is this?_

"Hey," he answered. All he could manage in the overwhelming emotion of that moment, observing his little family alone and together. Together with him. Good lord.

"But Mary - what are you doing here?" John Watson had to ask his question.

Time for Sherlock Holmes to deflect and defend.

"She's better at this than you," he stated softly, with none of his usual sarcasm. Just declaring the fact

"Better?" No anger or jealousy, just that need for explanation.

"So I texted her," he said baldly. Waiting for an explosion.

"Hang on; Mary's better than me?" Almost baffled, needing elucidation. Sherlock Holmes provided it. Addressed the elephant in the room no-one normally mentioned.

"Well, she is a retired super agent with a terrifying skill set. Of course she's better."

And as he said that he smiled. The rare, open, mellow smile only his friends saw. And because of that John Watson presented neither anger nor pique or a need to suppress the facts. Just an admission of truth And the first time he had publicly faced and admitted that truth.

"Yeah," he acknowledged. " OK."

"Nothing personal."

Out of love for his wife and his best friend John Watson looked from one to the other, held his daughter more tightly in his arms and thought of power plays and demotions and chains of command and choosing the right person for any given job and swallowed pride and masculinity and protectiveness. And handed control to others.

"What, so I'm just supposed to go home now, am I?"

It was not the answer either his wife or his friend had expected; and their eyes met in accord for one tiny moment both hoped he did not see.

"Oh - what do you think Sherlock?" She smiled, her eyes twinkled, and she teased gently; just a little. Fond, and familiar. And grateful for the caring and supportive part of John Watson she knew and loved best. "Shall we take him with us?"

 _Oh. Compromise. A marriage of equals. Who understood each other. Or was it understood each others demons? This may yet work. And I will help make it so. Perhaps all the sharp remarks and interference has been more about releasing the tension of a young marriage and a late unexpected child. Perhaps it is not my problem at all Except I am the only trusted friend - the dear and trusted friend - who could understand and absorb the tensions and insecurities between John and Mary?_

 _The only person who could catch and field and return that barrage? A compliment then, not a stealthy attack? Yes. That works. That makes sense. Better sense than me over thinking…_

He grinned then. Shared the tease.

"John or the dog?"

"Ah ha; that's funny," exclaimed John Watson. As if such an old joke really was funny.

"John," said Mary firmly and with loyal conviction.

"Well…." Sherlock Holmes began, mock thoughtfully.

"He's handy and loyal," Mary Watson added. And positively beamed at her husband Who beamed back.

"That's hilarious," he said. As if it was.

"Hmm…."

"Is it too early for a divorce?" asked the husband holding the baby.

"Aww" Mary, eyes bright, smiling in sympathy and pointed to herself.

Sherlock Holmes saw the affection and the mutuality there. And for a moment the hope that flared took root.

"Barnicot's house then," he said briskly, covering the burst of warmth he felt then. "Anyone up for a trudge?

Walked away with the dog, Toby pulling on the lead, in front. "Keep up, He's fast!"

o0o0o

Before visiting Dr Barnicot, they called in at the Georgian town house owned by entrepreneur Mohandes Hassan on the way.

An accountant who had made his fortune importing textiles from India for the British market, .Mohandes Hassan was urbane, sophisticated and dismissive.

"The break-in was useful, Mr Holmes," he explained "It revealed the shortcomings in my domestic security systems, and how to improve them. Nothing else was stolen. I was lucky."

"Nothing else stolen? Not even jewellery?"

"Not even jewellery," the businessman confirmed. "I appreciate jewellery is the normal target in Asian robberies. But nothing else stolen. Just the bust."

"And what was the importance of the bust?"

"A little wimsey of my wife's. I came to England as a baby thanks to the Uganda Asian expulsions and my family settled in Finchley. Margaret Thatcher was our local MP, and an inspiration to me.

"When I made my fortune, I became a Conservative Party donor. So my wife bought me the bust as a gentle reminder of that."

"Where did she buy it, do you know?"

"Mail order, I think. She does most of her gift shopping that way."

o0o0o

The story was similar at Donald Barnicot's. An Art Deco ground floor maisonette shared with wife, Angela; another Doctor Barnicot. Opposite the surgery where both worked.

"Stupid, really. Bought the bust on a whim. So ugly it was attractive. Know what I mean? " He was a middling sort of man; :middle aged, middle height, middle class. Utterly invisible apart from his profession. "Always vote Tory, but not political. Just amused when I realised Thatcher and me shared the same birthday.

"So I bought the bust, and kept it on my study windowsill."

"In open view from the street?"

"I suppose so. But who would want to steal Margaret? A Labour party fantasist? Doesn't make sense. Especially when nothing else was stolen. Not even a paper clip. Didn't even make a mess. Insane."

From the captain's chair at his study desk, he pointed to where the bust had been, absently stroking Toby's head.

"The burglar came in through the window?"

"Jemmied it open. The police think he did not even enter the room, just reached in and grabbed."

Examination of the ground around the window, the iron railings to the buffer garden, showed traces of telltale white powder; of the bust smashed against the railings so hard a sharp edge, against a fierce hand, drew blood. Easily overlooked, and probably overlooked by an overworked forensics officer processing a relatively unimportant break-in.

Not much blood, but enough for Toby, who sniffed a bloodied shard of the bust Sherlock Holmes brought with him, sniffed the railings again, and was off.

The three detectives followed their leader.

o0o0o

After a time progress slowed to erratic, blood spots smaller and further apart. Eventually the dog slumped on the pavement and just sat. The humans took a breather.

"He's really not moving," observed John Watson, who held Rosamund Mary Watson, asleep and perched on his chest in a papoose carrier.

"Slow but sure, John. Not dissimilar to yourself," Sherlock Holmes was distracted, watching the dog. Which sat phlegmatically on Mary Watson's foot and was no help.

"You just like this dog, don't you?" John Watson replied, without heat.

"Well, I like you."

An admission, but it drew no response. And, he thought, perhaps that was for the best.

"He's still not moving," Mary Watson wriggled her foot free and spoke with resignation.

"Fascinating," Sherlock Holmes said, apropos of nothing at all.

Then produced the bloodied shard of plaster again. Toby looked at it and drew in a deep breath. Stood up, shook himself, and ambled away. They followed.

Past shops and a pub. Past a church, through several anonymous streets..

"Well, what do you make of it?" Sherlock Holmes asked as they walked.

"They were looking for something." Mary Watson answered him this time, not her husband.

"Yes, but it wasn't a burglar, as such. They came especially for that Thatcher bust. Both break ins. Why?"

Neither Watson could provide that answer.

o0o0o

Eventually Toby brought them into Borough Market. And to a confused stop at a pool of blood by a surface drain with sawdust dumped upon it.

Toby sniffed the air, and the humans looked at the market stalls. Fruit, vegetables, cakes and pastries. Looked at the butcher's stalls full of carcasses and portioned meat….the smell of one especial type of blood lost in the smells of many more.

"Clever," hummed Sherlock Holmes, much as his heart and hope sank.

"Well, if you were wounded and you knew you were leaving a trail, where would you go?" asked Mary Watson; cool, professional, objective. Not knowing the importance of the blood trail and where it should have led.

"Like hiding a tree in a forest," her husband demurred.

"Or blood in a butchers," Sherlock Holmes agreed. Knelt at the bloodhound's head and stroked it, looking it in the eyes. "Never mind Toby, better luck next time, hmn?"

He stood slowly, looked around the market

"This is it, though," he said with certainty. "This is the one. I can feel it."

"Not Moriarty?" John Watson's look was intense.

"It has to be him," his friend whirled around them all, deep in thought, poised and over alert. "It's too bizarre. It's too baroque. It's designed to beguile me, tease me, lure me in," Hs voice was climbing in itch and intensity "At last a noose for me to put my neck into."

Distressed now, and deep in thought, he turned and began to walk away. Then turned back to take Toby's and simply walk away.

o0o0o

Blocked out all thought of Moriarty; until later. Back at Craig's house Toby was returned to his owner and settled down under the kitchen table. Another problem was explained to the young man. Who nodded, muttered something, and led Sherlock Holmes into his bedroom.

Black walls, blackout curtains, a bank of computers and screens and laptops.

"Craig's Fort Knox," Sherlock Holmes commented, And Craig snorted, booting up a computer and typing.

"Have you heard of that thing, in Germany?" he asked conversationally as he worked, opening and sectioning the screen, fingers flying, brain engaged.

"You're going to have to be more specific, Craig,"

"' _Ostalgie_. People who miss the old days under the Communists. People are weird, aren't they?"

"Hmn." He watched, fascinated. He was more than literate with computers himself, but the level of skill here was at another level.

"According to this," Craig read off the screen, "there is quite a market for Cold War memorabilia. Thatcher, Reagan, Stalin." Shook his head in disbelief, grinned again. "Time's a great leveller. Innit? Thatcher's like - I dunno - Napoleon, now."

Sherlock Holmes stepped closer to the screen, fascinated and alerted, leaning down to read over Craig's shoulder.

"Yes, fascinating. Irrelevant. Where did they come from?"

"I've got into the records of the suppliers. Gelder and Co, Seems they're from Georgia."

Sherlock Holmes stilled, frozen.

 _Too much of a coincidence. Too much. The universe is rarely so lazy….._

"Where, exactly?"

"Er, Tbisi. Batch of six."

 _Oh. Bingo. Oh my._

The detective stood up. Very tall, very straight. Barely breathing. .

"One to Welsborough," Craig read off the company paperwork he had hacked into. "One to Hassan. One to a Doctor Barnicot. Two to Miss Orrie Harker…."

Sherlock Holmes distractedly answered his ringing mobile.

"….One to a Mr Jack Sandeford of Reading….".

"Lestrade," a curt greeting. "Another one?"

"Yeah." Voice very tired.

"Harker or Sandeford?"

"Harker. And it's murder this time." He did not ask how Sherlock Holmes knew.

"Hmn. That perks things up a bit."

With a print out of the details he left Every Street, and in the taxi across town to the Harker killing, typed into his phone 'Black Pearl Mystery' and found various snippets of information he already knew. Added 'Interpol' and saw the appeal for information had been reissued. As he had already learnt from Hopkins. But there were no new leads.

He sat back and thought. Why renew the appeal for information? Why now? Because of his investigation?.

Six plaster busts from a workshop in Tblisi. Why only six? Why Tblisi? And why were they important enough to kill for?

He took the paperwork out of his pocket; something was scratching his memory. Looked at the address… 5, Vertskhlis Kucha. A little alley near Gorgasali Street.

Akhal Imp'erii Sast Umro, the New Empire Hotel, the British Embassy, has stood on Gorgasali Street.

And there _right there -_ was the memory The narrow alleyways behind. A cardboard box maker, a baker, an industrial catering unit, a cobbler's shop. And a pottery that produced cheap souvenir trinkets, and garden statuary.

He could see the sign in his mind's eye;a cheap plastic magnetic sign: Gelder and Co.

Too telling to be a coincidence. Too close for comfort.

First stop - the scene of Orrie Harker's murder. Then to the final bust in Reading - before anyone else did. And then on again - to a pottery in Tblisi.

He needed to speak to Nico Sologashvili. He needed to be there!

 _Could be interesting! Or awkward. Or deadly. All three?_

 _Onwards._

.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's notes:**

Dim Mak: Briefly, a form of Chinese martial art better known in myth and urban legend than reality, from late martial arts film star Bruce Lee to Kung Fu Panda. Allied to acupuncture, dim mak - known popularly as the touch of death - translates as 'press artery' and has an eccentric and controversial history going back to the 1960's. Based on the application of pressure or blows to arteries or meridians on the body, myth has it that such may lead to death up to several days after the killing blow.

Nyigma Buddhism: The oldest of the four major Tibetan forms of Buddhism

Pemko Chung Monastery: Partially destroyed by earthquake in the 1950's, this is still in use and is in Medog County

Medog County: also known as Metok, Metuo or Pamako, is a county in the Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.

Anako: A Japanese girl's name meaning 'flower girl.'

Barnicott: Rare aristocratic Dorset name with many spelling variations.

Mohandas Hassan: Mohandas is an Arabic name meaning engineer. Hassan is Sanskrit

Mystic Meg: A once popular psychic and fortune teller as featured in UK national press and on TV.

Hacking into the Pentagon: Several high profile real life cases over the last few years; probably due to a former Defense Secretary supporting a Bug Bounty programme, encouraging hackers to try and test the computer defence system at the Pentagon to pinpoint any failures.

Gelder and Co: Mark Gatiss has an actor friend called Ian Gelder; his partner Ben Daniels, played Buckingham in Bendict Cumberbatch's Richard III for The Hollow Crown TV series. The unusual name of Gelder comes from mediaeval England and has German connections, meaning a worker in gold.

Borough Market: One of the oldest food markets in London, dating back to the C12th. On Southwark Street London EC1 near London Bridge. See the intriguing website for history, recipes and events: borough .uk


	12. Chapter 12

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 12

Life is mostly froth and bubble

Two things stand like stone.

Kindness in anther's trouble,

Courage in your own.

(Adam Lindsey Gordon)

He couldn't take his eyes off the body, even from fifty yards away. A woman sprawled on her own front lawn. Lying on her face, arms raised towards her head, palms down, one leg bent at the knee as if she was about to rise, as if no-one had told her she was dead.

Oh, but he had seen so many dead bodies over the years .Too many. Grey dressing gown and blue pyjamas this time, bare feet. Nothing too gory, just a slit throat and a huge pool of dark red drying in the grass as she had bled out where she lay.

So. The man hunting down the six Thatcher busts was getting desperate now. He had finally killed someone to get what he wanted..

So. She had heard him breaking in, had got out of bed to go down and investigate, Less sense than courage. A natural response, but pretty stupid to chase him out of the house and into the garden as he had retreated.

Did she run and catch him, grab his shoulder to make him give up his loot? As she spun him round did one arm come up with the lock knife and kill her before she even realised there was any danger? Idiot. Was a chunk of plaster of Paris - two chunks even - really worth a life? It was not. No sense of self preservation. Stupid, but not stupid enough to normally condemn someone to death.

Rushing outside without even slippers on…..stepping on a stone or a slug would have broken her stride and saved her life. Oh, the irony.

 _Stop mentally waffling and face facts. I condemned her to death. was the cause of this. If I had seen more, made the connections, moved faster. .she might still be alive; primary school teacher Miss Oriana Harker, living alone in the Edwardian semi she had inherited from her parents; for whom she had bought the matching Thatcher busts almost six year ago. Before they died. And then she died._

"You OK?" Lestrade's voice interrupted his thoughts. His self recrimination.

"Hmn. Lacking a bit of sleep," offhandedly.

"Oh yeah?" Lestrade matched his tone with apparently casual ease, but he had known Sherlock Holmes for years. So, hearing a rare admission of vulnerability, gave him a keen assessing look. Saw the shadows under the eyes, the down turned mouth, the harsh set of the shoulders. the tired, stressed air that in anyone else would read as defeat. "When did you last sleep?"

"Fatuous question," was the reply. He was frozen for that moment, looking at the still centre of all the drama and activity in the untidy front garden. Orrie Harker. Scene of Crime Officers did their thing. Photographing, measuring, searching, calculating. Irrelevant to Sherlock Holmes.

Lestrade bit back a sharp retort. The consulting detective currently had no head space for verbal sparring, and he knew it.

"No defensive wounds on her face or hands Throat cut. Sharp blade," Lestrade explained, unoffended. Concise. But watchful now.

"So I see. Single left to right downward diagonal slash. Classic right handed action. No hesitation, no preliminary minor cuts. A professional. Knows what he's doing. Done it before."

"Yes."

 _This murder steps it up a gear; more danger than expected, more at stake. And I caused this, my foolish, self indulgent delay. Because instead of recognising the true urgency, following the leads with speed, I was showing off to my little audience, playing detective with Craig's stupid dog._

 _Trying to show her, without actually saying, that I would try to help Mary, provide the mental stimulus she needed. That little adventure a taster and an apology for being so dismissive when she rang. So wilfully dismissive._

 _Thought I had time enough to give us all that silly distraction, an amusing little diversion. Encouragement for Mary; a lead that would probably be a failure but worth a try; a chance for the Watsons to prove they could even work together with me, starting with these fairy steps. Never thought Toby would turn into RinTinTin the wonder dog, would really find, pick up and follow a scent to the target._

 _He wasn't trained; but he so nearly got it right, so nearly led me to the perpetrator. A man with a wound, just a little cut, who would not hesitate to wound or murder to get his hands on all those busts._

 _And none so far had whatever it was he needed to find so desperately. And then there was one…..._

"The same thing inside the house? The bust?" he asked. No point in going inside, the real event and any evidence was here, outside.

"Not one bust. Two of them this time," Lestrade corrected.

"Interesting That batch of statues was made in Tblisi several year ago. Limited edition of six."

His eyes were focussed on Orrie Harker lying at his feet, but his mind was elsewhere. Lestrade saw this, did not ask how Sherlock Holmes knew the facts he didn't.

"And now someone's wandering about destroying them all. Makes no sense. What's the point?" Lestrade was thinking aloud.

"No." This time the voce was slow and thoughtful. "They're not destroying them. That's not what's happening.

"Yes it is."

"Well it _**is**_ what's happening, But it's not the point. I've been slow. Far too slow."

"Well, I'm still being slow over here, so if you wouldn't mind….."

Sherlock Holmes granted the detective inspector a warm if ghostly little smile. There was affection there, unspoken, and no jibe of superiority, for once

"Slow but lucky Very lucky. And since they smashed both busts and - we must assume - got nothing, our luck might just hold." His head came up.

 _Into battle._

"Jack Sandeford of Reading is where I'm going next. I'm front line, you back up. Ready to wait it out - but he's in a hurry now, getting stressed, committing a murder he did not intend. So he will strike tonight. His last chance. You be invisible until needed. Two car and a marksman, I think. Don't you?".

"Sounds fair. Are you sure…?"

"Oh, yes. His last chance and his best chance. He'll be there as fast as he can, waiting to pounce. But Reading is a long way to travel by public transport. We'll be there first." He whirled round, taking in the scene. And then, suddenly: "Congratulations, by the way."

"I'm sorry?" Lestrade felt he had missed a step..

"Well, you're about to solve a big one.".

"Yeah, until John publishes his blog. "

"Yes, until then, basically."

A pause and a frown. "Where is he, by the way?"

"Fulfilling his destiny. Being a daddy. Sweet, isn't it?"

With a grin that lacked any humour, he turned and walked away. And so to Reading.

o0o0o

The large white Modernist house was beautiful and grade protected. Almost a century old, and with the look of always having been in the same family. On a sought after road, surrounded by trees for maximum privacy Which would both conceal Lestrade's men and allow the hunter to get close to it's prey. The perfect set-up.

Driven direct from the Sandeford house in Davy Gallagher's black cab, the journey of about fifty miles was mainly a boring trek down the M4, and during the ride - _not wasting a moment, now! -_ he took to his phone for some research on the target.

Jack Sandeford was a prominent local figure. Chairman of the local Chamber of Trade, charity fundraiser, Captain of the most prestigious local golf club, Chairman of the local Conservative Association.

Old and responsible before his time, pillar of the community. Worthy and boring; he knew the type. Also divorced, and then widowed, and single father of a much cherished seven year old daughter, Zita.

He had contemplated informing Sandeford he was about to become a target, then thought better of it: To lure the burglar in, everything needed to appear normal. But with a young child to protect and with no apparent family support at hand, Sandeford would panic rather than cooperate. So he had to do something about that.

In such a large house without any other residents, it was easy to pick the lock of the utility room, work his presence in the house around the predictable habits of the Sandefords, deduce what they drank as a nightcap, and doctor both with appropriate additives. They would sleep soundly in their beds, sleep through whatever happened later.

Inside, the Modernist house was ultra modern but retained some comfortable original period touches.

The indoor pool, with it's glass external wall and bifold doors, featured a huge mural of the Great Wave Off Kanagawa on the back wall, and was new, however, something of an indulgence to humour the child and compensate for the death. A Jacuzzi lay to one side, and photoelectric controls worked water features as well as doors and lights.

All the toys, he thought. So very boring.

A little atrium connected pool to kitchen and the rest of the house, and there the familiar bust of Margaret Thatcher stood guard on a side table along with family photographs. A cosy and attractive dwelling; a grandeur to match her hauteur.

Sherlock Holmes took up position beside the pool in the depths of a comfortable cane armchair which had a high back sufficient to be concealing in the semi darkness.

And he silently watched while the affable Jack Sandeford scooped his daughter out of the pool after her evening swim, oversaw supper and bedtime rituals; spent time in his office before taking an early night himself.

Finally the house settled and quietened, and the consulting detective became the night watch, silent and immobile.

Well after 10pm a slim dark figure bypassed the security locks and lights and slipped inside the atrium carrying a large empty sports bag. Made unerringly for the Thatcher bust and took pains to silently push the plaster of Paris model inside the bag.

It was packed away and the zip being closed over it when the lights snapped on, and the intruder froze, Taken by surprise, uncertain what to do next.

Sherlock Holmes got a proper first look at a slight but muscular figure, in camouflage gear of khaki combat trousers, lightweight Austrian military boots and tee shirt under a hoodie; the face concealed by a standard issue black balaclava.

"Moriarty…..?" It was more a tiny prayer or a whisper of dread rather than a question. Before he cleared his throat and in his usual voice said: ""Wouldn't it be much simpler to take out your grievances at the polling station?"

At the sound of his voice the man in the hoodie acted at speed on pure reflex, and whipped a pistol from the back of his waistband; and as the arm with the elderly Browning curved and straightened in his direction, Sherlock Holmes moved just as quickly to slap the gun out of the hand with a blow that seemed simple and relaxed but carried great force; a classic stylised Pekiti Tirsia blade strike of strength and precision.

The weapon landed in one corner of the room with a clatter, but did not go off; no time to appreciate that small mercy, as the intruder flung himself at Sherlock Holmes. A shoulder thrust slammed into a torso, and they grappled. Short and nasty close quarter fighting, more anger than technique from one, more cold irritated response from the other.

He should have the upper hand, he knew he should: taller, heavier, with a longer reach. But he had been close to his limits before this started, he knew. Almost three days without sleep, and so very tired, muscles trembling under stress, and only bloody minded determination kept him going forward, intending to end the brawl as fast as possible.

He wrenched himself away from desperate grasping hands, which then swung away to grab the nearest weapon - a bar stool - from the kitchen island bar, and thrown at him in single minded intent. A fight to the death, was this, for something needed urgently? Something unique? Something special? Something irreplaceable?

All he could see clearly of his opponent were the eyes; black empty pools of eyes with almost manic intent. Eyes like that had to be Moriarty's….except the skin around them and the skin of the hands were darker. Not Moriarty, then. But eyes that had the same single minded light of fixation to them.

 _Not Moriarty! Pleased, appalled or just perplexed by that? So where was Moriarty? Alive or dead? In the ground or in my head? And did it really matter? Matter right now? Just concentrate. And fight for your life._

A wave of temper and disappointment swept through him, and he snapped forward, punching the intruder, who retaliated by rushing in close, head butting him, grabbing the back of his neck and slamming his face down onto a worktop.

But Sherlock Holmes was turning even as his head hit the bread board on the worktop, which absorbed and dissipated much of the force of his head being slammed down, and he was able to get a couple of old fashioned, close quarter punches into the other man's body; and as he did that to hurt and distract, with his free hand he reached out and tore off the balaclava, revealing a brown face of taut young lines, fine boned and averagely handsome.

And for a brief moment Sherlock Holmes reeled back at what he saw then, and who he recognised.

Not Jim Moriarty. But - unbelievably - a face he knew. Had seen before. Another time, another continent. But at another time of danger.

The market in Tblisi. The café. The kick to the head from a combat boot - _the same boots he was wearing now! Good lord! -_ the snatched bag, the decisive order, a reflex action in a native tongue, regardless of being in Georgia, not Sri Lanka.

" _Randa vanna eppu_!" The order had rapped out in Sinhalese - 'do not fight' - and had so recently pushed him unexpectedly back through the years to kidnap and fear and sexual torture in Sri Lanka. Too many years in the past, but still remembered, vividly branded into his heart and intellect.

Cold reaction had hit him between the eyes, the shoulder blades, the very ventricles of his heart. And did again now at the memory. The machine faltered for a second. Gathered itself again.

" _Randa vanna eppu!"_ Sherlock Holmes ordered now, finally using those words in his turn. Do not fight.

The eyes of the other man widened, blinked up at him. Shock and surprise to hear that language certainly, and to hear that order, but no fear. A professional, measuring new perspective, calculating the odds.

" _Obata mata aenavum kala nohaeka,_ " was the defiant reply: You cannot order me.

" _Mata karanna puluvn!"_ Sherlock Holmes retorted, head high. Seeking psychological domination.. I can. I do.

Everything came to a stop. They looked at each other, reappraising each other.

"You were on the run. In Tbisi. Nowhere to hide your precious cargo."

A deduction now voiced, that had to be correct. No other explanation fit. The other an a silent, suddenly frozen tableau. No use at all!

He kicked the intruder on the knee to get some reaction. The intruder, who had stood still, speechless and frozen, jolted back into himself, and kicked back automatically. They circled one another again, gathering information this time rather than simply trading blows.

Sherlock Holmes registered somewhere in the back of his brain that there had been a blow- two - that landed on target and there was blood running down his nose and into his mouth. He sniffed hard; unheeding and mainly uncaring, spat out blood onto the floor. The other man carried more damage; and he didn't care about that, either.

"The siege. You escaped from the siege somehow. You found yourself in a workshop. Desperate to hide your booty, with little choice of a hiding place before you were discovered. Plaster busts of the Iron Lady were drying on a rack. So you thought fast, and hid your treasure, your precious cargo, inside the still wet and pliable plaster inside one of them."

There was no denial, but the intruder was listening intently; perhaps wondering how the other man knew. Still did not speak.

"But in the rush you had no time to mark the special one, did you? Oh, yes: it's clever. Very clever. Thinking on your feet like that. Risky, though.

" But now you've met me, and you're not so clever, are you?" Yes. Psychological domination. His only advantage now. His brain winning out, as always.

"Who are you?" A voice. Light tenor, n accent. Not cowed, but curious.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes"

"Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes."

The calmness had been just a façade: with a loud shout, a war cry of pure animal purpose, the intruder threw himself headlong at Sherlock Holmes, surging up from the balls of his feet.

The force and the surprise of the attack sent both men, fighting and clutching each other to reach for advantage, off balance and, with some force, straight through the glass panel that divided atrium from pool, while the sound of breaking glass followed them and surrounded them as they crashed through that delicate barrier and straight down into the water.

For a moment they split apart, shocked by the impact, intent on self preservation, naked survival against an opponent more deadly than either of them. Water. Life giver, but also life taker.

Gasps for air, for survival, fighting shock and the risk of drowning to get back to the surface. Fighting the water as much as each other. A fight that was lengthy, brutal, untidy, exhausting. A bitter contest for sheer survival as much as victory. And as time went on it was sometimes hard to tell which was which.

Punch, withdraw, snatch a breath, clutch, submerge. Try not to be drowned, but try to drown. Hold breath, fight for breath, drag in breath, fight for breath and for more. Fight with hands and feet and against each other and against the water.

Scrabble, Ugly, primeval struggle against man and element both. Neither man nor water was forgiving The younger man, the slighter man, had anger and angst and desperation about his mission on his side; battling a man who was battered and broken before he had even started this unexpected fight..

The intruder momentarily gained the upper hand; unable to defeat the consulting detective in the wider water of the pool, and, desperate for victory, he hauled Sherlock Holmes out of the swimming pool and into the smaller, more controllable environment of the Jacuzzi. Held him by the hair, forced his head under the water with serious intent to kill.

A hand came out of the water and flailed as if by accident across a photo electric switch, the one that turned on the cascade of aerating water: water that suddenly cascaded over them both. The shock of that first impact made them break apart.

Somehow, slippery as an eel, Sherlock Holmes managed to surface first, turned to face the intruder. An instinctive backhand blow, an arm around the intruders neck, going for the eye sockets and forcing him down into the water. Neither time nor opportunity for finesse.

A strangled cry, but the taller man managed to get the other's head under the water long enough to subdue him, until he felt muscles start to slacken with lack of air. A fierce shove away, the chance to turn and make for the side, haul himself, streaming water, back onto solid ground and breathing in only air.

Back into the kitchen, his target that sports bag and it's precious cargo. There was a desperate roar of anger and defeat behind him, which Sherlock Holmes ignored, to pounce on the bag, tear it open, and drag out the bust of Margaret Thatcher. It was identical to the other five, a strong pure white, with Gerald Scarfe-like nightmare cartoonish likeness.

The other man, now also out of the water, ran towards him and without a pause for thought Sherlock Holmes half turned and smashed the bust into his face, knocking him down and backwards…so close to the gun he had been carrying, yet both men too intently fixated on the bust to notice.

"You're out of time," snapped the detective. Breathing hard, but in control, at last. "Tell me about your boss, Moriarty."

"Who?" The other man's eyes were simply puzzled. Surprised at the question; not calculating, not understanding. Blank.

"I know it's him," was the immediate reply. Then, seeing the blankness, suddenly unsure:. "It must be him." He held up the bust, focussing now. Amazed he had not already broken it b using it as a cudgel.

"You think you understand. You understand nothing."

The intruder was thinking faster than the detective. Voice flat, supercilious, scathing.

 _Have I got this wrong? I can't have got this wrong! Too much depends….Push on…._

"Well, before the police come in and spoil things, let's enjoy the moment," he sneered, demanding response, truth, some honest reaction.

 _Admission or action. Anything! Anything to make sense of this!_

He held the bust up higher. To give an impression of command if not actually having it.

"Let me introduce Interpol's number one case. Too tough for them. Too boring for me."

He swung the bust, watching the intruder cover his face with his arm- expecting to be hit with it again? Fair enough. Logical, if far too obvious. Never do the obvious!

The bust slammed down onto the hard tiled floor, and the final Margaret Thatcher clone disappeared in a cloud of thick white dust.

"The Black Pearl Of The Borgia's!" He exclaimed in triumph, with the air of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. He felt smug, vindicated. The problem had been more of a nine than an eight, solved and sorted at last, after far too long without resolution.

 _Nia would feel absolved, and Nico would be delighted…._

And yet. Seeing the shocked face of the intruder he finally looked down properly, through the settling cloud of dust, at the remains of Margaret Thatcher. But no black pearl shone up at him through the encircling whiteness.

Instead. He could barely believe the evidence of his own eyes. Instead there was a large stainless steel memory stick with those familiar letters in that familiar inked scrawl of four capital letters - AGRA.

The last time he had seen that memory stick _NO! Not that memory stick! But one exactly like it! -_ he had been slipping it back into John Watson's jacket pocket on Christmas Eve after he had stolen it from his friend earlier. To copy it and to read the contents - because he knew, had always known - a man as honourable and as romantic as John Watson would never investigate his wife's secrets. Her past, her abilities, her missions. That was his given task, his alone.

The memory stick. Identical to the one she had revealed in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street. The night he had broken out of hospital, organised a show down, collapsed and almost died.

Now, devastated, destroyed, humiliated and wrong, he sank down to his knees, unable to compute what had happened, unable to believe his eyes, unable to take his eyes off the writing on the side, of those carelessly scribbled initial letters.

This murderous intruder was right. He knew nothing. Not a bloody thing!

"Its not possible. How could she…." he didn't even know he was speaking as he sank slowly to the ground, to his knees, to spread his hands through the plaster dust, seeking…just in case he had missed…the thing he needed to be there. The Black Pearl Of The Borgia's.

But it was not there. All his hands found was the memory stick.. And he felt sick. Cheated. Destroyed.

"I don't understand." He was talking to himself.

The intruder saw the shock and the lack of focus, reached slowly for the Browning Sherlock Holmes had taken from him, could not believe his luck a he picked up the gun and raised it, to point at the deeply distracted detective. Who ignored him, ignored the gun.

She destroyed it….." he muttered, clenching the memory stick in his hand until the edges cut into his palms, until it hurt. Until he knew it was real.

"She?" The intruder asked the question.

Rising slowly to his knees, eyes suddenly full of tears, he pointed his gun at Sherlock Holmes.

"You know her."

It was a statement. And they were both talking about the same woman.

The detective frowned.. Raised his head through the bedlam going on in there and almost concentrated..

"You do, don't you? You know the bitch. She betrayed me. Betrayed us all."

Those words were the last thing Sherlock Holmes expected to hear. His eyes focused again, finally, and he looked across at the intruder, yet as if still not registering the threat, the gun and it's handler.

Something moved, shifted, in the intruder's face. Recognition.

"I know you now. The man in Tblisi market. The man with the duffle bag. The man with a little memory stick; a different memory stick - in his bag. A memory stick with photos on it, Photos of her And you. At a wedding…..are you married to her?"

The sound of police sirens approaching halted his memories. Both men lifted their heads, listened to the sound of Lestrade and his men coming. Coming to get them.

"Mary," Sherlock Holmes said, voice low and incredulous. "This is about Mary?"

"Is that what she's calling herself now, eh?"

Before he could answer the sirens shut off as quickly as they had started. A voice came over a loudhailer; Lestrade. Tinny through the bullhorn, but still authoritative.

"Armed police! You're surrounded!"

"Give it to me!" The intruder showed no sign of having heard, rose to his feet, eyes locked on the detective, a hand out to take the memory stick. The two came to their feet together.

"Give it to me!" A scream this time. But Sherlock Holmes, as if in a trance, still did not react.

"Come out slowly," Lestrade's voice seemed closer, louder. "I want to see your hands above your head!"

"Nobody shoots me!" shouted the intruder into the darkness. "Anybody shoots, I kill this man!"

"Lay down your weapon! Do it now!" Lestrade's firm voice continued, strong and compulsive.

The intruder started to back away. Seeming still fearful of Sherlock Holmes, despite holding the gun, regaining all the advantage.

"I'm leaving this place." Hard to tell if the words were a half shout for Lestrade's benefit, or a quiet statement of intent to Sherlock Holmes. "If no-one follows me, no-one dies."

Lay down your weapon!" The loud speaker again. Unrelenting.

"You're policemen. I'm a professional." The intruder was still looking at the taller man, but speaking quietly, more calmly now. The quietness of deep intent. "Tell her she's a dead woman. A dead woman walking,"

At last Sherlock Holmes came out of his trance, held the other man's gaze. His voice was low with commitment, intent, implied threat.

"She's my friend. And she's under my protection Who are you?"

"I'm the man…." The name almost came, yet he paused, changed his mind. Saw he was not going to get the memory stick even if he shot the tall and assured man before him - and risked being shot in turn by the police outside. For a moment he teetered on the edge of resolve. "…who's going to kill your friend," he promised. Then: "Who's Sherlock Holmes?"

"Not a policeman."

Whatever those three words meant, or proved, or promised, it was enough to save his life.

The intruder shifted his aim, corrected his hold. And Sherlock Holmes stood and waited, yet again, for the jolt and the searing pain he knew and remembered only too well. But that did not come.

The shot, when it did come, took out the household electrics, more importantly, the sensors that opened the poolside doors and which the man fromTblisi couldnot reach ithut shooting Sherlock Holmes.

The results, with hissing and popping, as the fusebox was taken out, was like fireworks lighting up a sky. Then all the lights went out except two tiny uplighters behind them on a different security circuit. A high pitched alarm began to sound, higher and louder; and then the white strobe alarm light came on.

In the noise and light and confusion the intruder turned and slid with professional speed through one of the newly opened external doors, leaving Sherlock Holmes motionless, unable to react, frozen in the doorway, the memory stick still clenched in one hand.

o0o0o

When Lestrade entered the room less than a minute later, leaving his officers to scour the grounds for the intruder who had apparently and inexplicably slipped through their net, he found Sherlock Holmes on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor, wet through and shaking, retching and vomiting water beside the remains of the last Thatcher bust.

Even before he crouched down to help the consulting detective to his feet, Lestrade was talking, talking of what had happened, filling the silence of the aftermath. Talking, not of safety and succour, but of facts.

"Grounds here are too extensive, too dark. Too many bushes to hide in, trees to climb; sorry. He seems to have given us the slip."

"No surprise there." And no sarcasm, for once.

"You OK?"

"Fine."

"Why are you wet?"

"Bit of a disagreement with the intruder. The pool got in the way"

Lestrade lifted him bodily, getting no assistance from the dead weight between his hands, and held him upright, not ungently. Looked into grey eyes that were not quite steady or focussed.

"What was in the bust, then?"

Sherlock Holmes wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked Lestrade straight in the eye, unblinking.

"Nothing. Wild goose chase."

"What? After all that effort? And a murder?"

"It is symptomatic of the psychotic personality…"

"Yeah. Know all that. But I still have a murderer to find. Description?"

The detailed description and debriefing lasted as long as it took for them to leave the house, for Lestrade to delegate officers to stay behind and secure the building, check for forensics, wake Jack Sandeford and help him organise his insurance claim, alert an emergency electrician. For Lestrade to find a plastic sheet for the dripping wet consulting detective to sit on in the back of his car for the trip back to London. Wearing the dry Belstaff over the wet clothes did nothing to allay the shaking.

Once the car was in motion Sherlock Holmes angled himself away and turned towards the window.

"You sure you're OK?"

After a pause that lasted a moment too long a small voice Lestrade did not recognise emerged from the darkness.

"I was wrong. I have set something in motion. Something I don't yet understand. Looking death in the face. And it's all my fault."

.

o0o0o

Behind the silence and the impassive façade, he was thinking furiously as the unmarked police car took him from Reading back to central London, Lestrade driving, silent by his side, aware of his disturbed mind, not knowing what to do about it or what to say that would make anything better.

How had he got things so spectacularly wrong? Why had he been so obsessed with the black pearl, with Moriarty? Why had he not seen that Mary was the link, was the key to the six Thatchers? He had guessed their secret, but his thought process had not gone far enough or fast enough. Not deep enough into events in Tblisi. Not concentrated on the only survivor of the carnage.

His mind went back to review what had happened, To Nico and Nia, to Hilary Weatherstone. To everything he had been told. To Elizabeth Smallwood and Mycroft. The bit players like the draconian Sir Edwin, the wittering secretary whose name he had instantly deleted, the locals he had met in Tblisi, from the gimlet eyed old lady who drank coffee in the market every day, to the off duty workers propping up each other in the Diamond Bar, _Almasis Ban_ , close to the site of the old British Embassy, supping the chacha, etno and shkhivana Sherlock Holmes had bought them, oiling important memories of the past, of the siege..

 _The black pearl and Moriarty…did all that misplaced focus go back to that meeting with Mycroft, at his subterranean cubby hole at the Doigenes Club? (And why were all his meetings regarding this business at the Diogenes? To keep them out of official records? And what might that infer?)_

 _No: don't gt distracted, concentrate on this. Mycroft's words…._

" _In the last year of his life," Mycroft had intoned with authority, referring to a manila folder, "James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks….and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl Of The Borgia's - which is still missing by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical."_

 _The sheer scale of Moriarty's operations had appalled him, even though he had spent two years away from home and his own life closing down Moriarty's spider's webs. Spoken baldly like that, the immensity of what he had taken on and taken down was overwhelming._

 _Why had Moriarty taken any interest in the Black Pearl at all? Did he know something abut the Tblisi siege? About Mary? The last thing they all needed was Moriarty getting his sights on the problem, working mischief and interference. Even if he really was dead, his tentacles had a long reach in a posthumous game only Moriarty could have understood. But which kept them all on high alert._

 _Automatically he had wanted to redeem the entire situation. To negate Moriarty's influence, Mycroft's interest, Elizabeth's involvement, John's fears, Mary's safety. Too many aspects to begin to consider, to prioritise._

" _It's a pearl. Get another one," he had snapped dismissively._

 _But then added, almost despite himself: "There's something important about this. I'm sure. Maybe it's Moriarty. Maybe it's not. But something's coming…" his words trickled to a halt. He should never have spoken them, he realised, but it was already far too late to claim them back, especially when speaking to his over alert, over cautious brother._

" _Are you having a premonition, brother mine?" The words dripped with sarcasm, disbelief, criticism and cynicism._

 _But he had not risen to the bait to play their normal game. Answered in all seriousness._

" _The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other." Chaos theory. Well known, widely accepted. Mycroft would know that "What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If we could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics."_

 _It was, he reflected, the reason he had been working for the past few months at a mile a minute; scouring the web for cases, information, connections, gossip - anything that led him back to resolve the mysteries of the Tblisi siege. The missing black pearl he had thought hidden in one of the busts._

" _Appointment In Samarra," Mycroft stated, apparently apropos of nothing in particular.._

" _I'm sorry?"_

" _The merchant who can't outrun death," Mycroft explained. No sarcasm now, just thoughtfulness and reflection. He looked up at his brother with a expression that could not be read, something softer than usual, lost in memory. "You always hated that story a a child. Less keen on predestination back then," he added._

" _I'm not sure I like it now," the younger brother admitted._

" _You wrote your own version as I remember - Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine." A tiny smile of remembrance. "Then he becomes a pirate, for some reason."_

 _He had whirled away, from his brother, from memory, from the past, from a sudden rare harmony of thought and mood between them._

" _Keep me informed," he threw behind him as he left the office._

" _Of what?"_

 _It had been a natural question, but it irritated and perplexed._

" _Absolutely no idea," he complained. And was gone before his elder brother could respond._

 _And what had been the point of that exchange? Why had it coloured his thinking so deeply? Directed his focus? Been so utterly WRONG?._

o0o0o

He slouched out of his damp coat and left it on the hooks in the hall, trudged up the stairs to 221B without bothering to turn on the lights. Ignoring Lestrade following him, ignoring the solicitude of the older man. Ignoring his wet state; the Belstaff had been gently steaming; he was drying out, and distracted.

"Well?" he turned to Lestrade, finally, tapping his fingers irritably against the memory stick in his hand, thinking furiously.

"He can't have got far. We'll have him in a bit." The words sounded trite, even to Lestrade. But he knew better than to apologise for going through the motions of reassurance.

"I very much doubt it." Sherlock Holmes took out his mobile and started to type a text.

"Why?"

"Because I think he used to work with Mary."

He turned and left the room, a vague wave of dismissal towards Lestrade, who refrained from asking if he was OK, if he was in shock, if he was exhausted…..stressed….in need of support. And silently slipped away.

o0o0o

The consulting detective switched off the sitting room light, padded around in the dark and silent flat. Still typing a complex text, to pause. Delay completion. Thinking.

Finding himself in the bathroom he stripped off the wet clothes, put the suit onto a hanger and into the airing cupboard to dry, the remaining garments into the laundry hamper.

Then a quick shower to warm up and stop the shaking, into pyjamas and his second best blue dressing gown. mobile into pocket.. Too exhausted to dry his hair or get himself into slippers. Hovered indecisively in the doorway of the kitchen, torn between the desperate need for a drink to remove the dry taste of chlorine in his throat from the pool, or to simply collapse on the sofa and sleep.

It had been three nights without sleep; a trip to and from Tblisi, of manipulation and an almost seduction, computer theft, a bloodhound, an assurance, of more investigation and murder. Physical and mental shock and a fight that had been almost to the death. He could admit to himself he had had enough.

He was so tired his teeth hurt. He made tea and while doing so only remained standing by propping himself against a wall. Desperate times called for three sugars in the tea for instant energy. Very carefully, and with the precise slow movements of a drunk, he drifted into the dark bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh. Took a sip of tea.

"So what was this morning about, then?"

The voice from the darkness was John Watson's. John Watson sitting in the dark, in the armchair by the window.

Had he heard the brief exchange with Lestrade? About Mary? Apparently not. Sherlock Holmes braced himself, gathered himself together again;

 _I don't have time or energy for this. Argument. Confrontation. Misplaced jealousy._

"I don't have time for this, John."

"Hard luck. Explain this morning."

The desk light clicked on, and they both blinked as their eyes adjusted to the brightness. Sherlock Holmes took a breath and launched into glibness.

"Explain what? Oh! Toby, you mean? I needed help from Craig - the sort of information only he could reach. He dotes on that great oaf of a dog. So asking to borrow Toby was a bit of flattery and a wild goose chase that could, perhaps, have been a lead…."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. I want to know about Mary. What Mary was doing at Craig's house."

"Nothing much….."

"Nothing much! She shouldn't have been there at all! And certainly not with Rosie! We had agreed, all of us! Promised! Never to take Rosie on cases….."

Sherlock Holmes put his tea down on the bedside chest of drawers with care and stood and looked full in the face of the cold, disbelieving anger before him. John Watson, pale and thin lipped, hands clenched into fists and shoulders high and tense And he still felt too old and tired to deal with any of it.

"There was not a chance Rosie could come to harm. And Mary wasn't actually there on a case….." he began. The authority he was aiming for sounded more than defensive.

"Why was she there, then?" Tight voice, and open to neither discussion nor excuses.

"To give Craig a head start, tell him I was coming…."

"Any idea how feeble that sounds, genius?" And, again: "Why was she there?"

John Watson surged to his feet, fists tight, not far from losing control of his anger. He cast a large shadow across his friend.

Inadvertently Sherlock Holmes leaned away and took half a step back in tacit admission of that shadow of fear. He did not want to admit Mary had asked him for interest and action, reveal her desperate dissatisfaction with life, with the dourly dominating detail of her life choice. That he was trying to help her, in a roundabout, indirect way.

"I've just told you. Getting Craig to help me was important. And with Mary there to prepare the ground, I had hoped Craig would feel flattered. You know how charming Mary can be."

"That should be so logical and sensible an answer. So why does it sound like total bullshit?"

"Because you want it to be. Because you want to fault me, and you want to fault her.

What are you really asking me, John? Is there something about your wife you doubt?"

"I don't…." the reply fumbled to put words to feelings.

"At some point, "Sherlock Holmes said very softly, and with rare gentleness, "you are finally going to have to face the fact that Mary is not your typical housewife and mother. That she is….that she needs more than that."

"Oh yeah? And what do you know about it? Been talking to you, has she? Confiding in you?" His head rose, eyes hot, cheeks flushed. "Don't lie to me, Sherlock. I know she talks to you. I knew she seeks you out.

"So why does she do that? Fancies you, does she? Chats quietly in corners and puts her head on your shoulder?"

"John! For goodness' sake!"

"Tells you all her woes? Confides in you the way she never confides in me?"

"John…John, stop it. You've got it wrong. Stop looking for problems, stop punishing yourself."

"I'm not like you, Sherlock. I'm not brilliant or posh or handsome, like you. I'm just an ordinary bloke. Nothing compared to you. I understand if your presence has turned her head. After all you have a pretty unique bond, don't you? The handsome genius and the woman who killed him."

"Stop it! Stop it now!" He took half a step forward and grasped the elbows of the doctor, shook him hard - once - released his grip and stood back.

 _Sod it. Shouldn't have done that. He'll thump me, and I will have deserved it. And if he thumps me and knocks me don - and he will - I haven't got the energy or the inclination to get up again….._

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. But I am so very tired….."

"Oh, that old favourite ploy. Sherlock's emotional manipulation. Never fails. Sorry. Doesn't work on me any more."

John Watson's eyes flashed a warning. His best friend took another step back..

"What's got into you? You are accusing me of things you know I don't do. And yet when a friend accuses a friend of something they don't do, it shows what is uppermost in their own mind. A deep psychological tell about themselves. So what is it with you, John? Accusing me of something you are doing?"

Something shifted in John Watson's body language, his eyes flickered and fell. Sherlock Holmes sucked in a hard breath and pressed his advantage, however distasteful it felt.

"So. Are you bored with the ordinary conventional life you chose for yourself? Bored with wife and baby and domesticity? No danger or adrenalin anymore? Mary is on maternity leave, no longer working at the surgery. Is a new bright eyed nurse or receptionist or manager flirting with you while she's away? Or you flirting with her?

"Perhaps it's the waitress at the local café, the barista at the coffee bar, a smiling stranger on a bus or train every day on the way to work? Shared idle smiles and fluttering eyelashes? Is that the best you can do for danger these days? Low level titillation?"

His voice was hard and bright as John Watson turned away, cheeks suddenly flushed.

"Don't be stupid!" The words lacked the force they should have There was a kernel of truth there that made Sherlock Holmes' heart rise into his throat…

"I am never stupid! Preposterous - often. Inspired always. But never ever, stupid." He took a deep breath. Refused to continue with that line of questioning, what wounds it might open, what seismic fissures it might reveal.

Any tensions between the Watson's was their problem and privacy; nothing to do with him. "You refused to read Mary's memory stick. Something about love and trust, apparently. I dunno. All emotion is repellent to me. You, however, are something else."

"Are you and Mary trying to destroy me? Fobbing me off like a minor member of staff to just hold Rosie this morning while you two superior beings did your thing? Belittling me with taunts about Mary being cleverer than me?"

"We were teasing. Where has your sense of humour gone? You two are a perfect couple. Trained killers, trained carers. Brilliant at both ends of the spectrum. No wonder you found each other and fell in love. Remember that, do you?"

"Shut up!"

"The truth hurts, does it? Don't lay whatever problems you are having between you at my door. It's nothing to do with me. I am just the freak, here, remember? The so-called friend you drew in, who you demanded be part of your little family. Be Uncle Sherlock and godfather. I never wanted it…."

"You organised our wedding! Were best man! Pushed us back together after she…she shot you. Made us work it out. Even delivered Rosie!"

"Because I thought it was for the best! That it was what you wanted! You said it was….. "

He turned away with a dismissive flip of the hand.

"Go away. I'm tired. And this pointless conversation is giving me a headache."

"Typical, Stuff gets hard and you walk just walk away. You always walk away."

"Walk away? Since chasing down a thief this morning I have looked down on the body of an innocent young woman the thief has killed. Did my best to save the widowed father and his daughter who would have been the next victims if I hadn't got there first. Had a fight that was almost to the death. Turned out not to be because the thief is basically a good guy: he drew a gun on me and could have shot me dead a couple of times and chose not to.

"But he IS desperate. He is seeking something - something I told Lestrade did not exist." He drew a breath; could feel the weight of the memory stick in his dressing gown pocket, felt the weight of the newly downloaded files on his computer he had not yet had time to read and analyse. Both pushed him to continue stating the obvious. "To protect you and Mary. And look where that's got me! Berated by you as if I am some third rate villain. And unfairly, I might add.

"Well, sod that, John. I've had enough. Go away."

He sat back down on the edge of the bed while he still had enough control of his body to sit down under his own power. He did not want his best friend to see such physical and mental weakness. Lifted his head in the old defiant way to meet John Watson's eyes, then made him look away at the strength and the truth of that challenge.

"Sherlock! I….."

"Face some facts and then go home and talk to Mary. Talk to your wife, John. If you dare. Ask her about her life before you came into it Ask her about Mary Johnson, and Ro Adams. About Alex and Gabriel and Ajay. About her links to Magnussen and why she was in the penthouse to shoot him, yet chose to shoot me instead. Ask her!"

"And if you haven't the balls to ask her that…then just ask her about the pistol she keeps under the kitchen sink. And why she does that."

"What gun?"

"Oh, John. You really should have known about that before I mentioned it. See how well matched you are? Both so good at secrets. You keep your Sig in a false bottom of the wardrobe. She keeps her gun with the cleaning materials. Quite appropriate now, when I think of it. But don't take my word for it. Ask her. And ask her why."

He sighed deeply and dropped his head into his hands. One weakness he did not care about John Watson seeing.

There was a brief silence, then he heard footsteps move across the room, felt the presence in front of him, and sensed John Watson crouch down before him.

"Sherlock. I….." The voice was hesitant and hollow now. "What can I say? I always thought it was over. That she had changed her life. Her ways. That she wanted to be a wife and mother…."

"She does. You have to believe that."

"Oh. I do. But she doesn't want that enough, does she? She had a life before me and Rosie. And that life…always….threatens to drag her back to it. I suppose I have always known that, at the back of my mind. Why I have never dwelt on it or discussed it with her. I'm not that exciting in comparison to my wife. I understand that only too well.

"But I was lucky. When my adrenalin filled life came to a sudden stop Sherlock Holmes came into my life and offered me a better alternative than the battlefield; he offered me the war for justice. All Mary had as an alternative to that excitement of conflict was….me. Offering love and refuge Not the same. No comparison."

Sherlock Holmes took his hands from his face and braced his arms,hands clutching his knees. Looked across at the broken man with bowed head bent before him, but offering no comfort.

"John. What you offered Mary was simpler and better and more honest than what I gave you. It's not her fault. Nor yours. Or mine, for that matter. It is what it is."

His friend looked up at him and their eyes met. John Watson managed a rueful and twisted little grin.

"Hmn. I get the feeling there is a lot you're not saying. Doe that have something to do with what I have always feared? That Mary's past is finally about to jump up and reclaim her? And that that is dangerous?"

There was a silence that lasted two seconds too long. And in that silence John Watson heard the answer he did not want to hear or acknowledge. He nodded his head - just once, a sharp and curt, military thing - and then looked at Sherlock Holmes with a new resolve.

"I fear so. Not totally sure. But every instinct…..I'm sorry, John. But I think someone is after her."

 _You know the bitch…. She betrayed us. Betrayed us all. A dead woman walking….._ the words came back to him, ringing so loudly in his ears he could not believe John Watson did not hear them too.

 _How can I tell him all this? Without any warning, or preparation? Without him having a chance at hearing Mary's side of things first? Without true perspective? Without compassion or hope?_

So he bit back every word of the truth, declined to tell what had happened by the side of an indoor swimming in Reading. Touched his friend briefly on the hand; a silent and rarely expressed empathy.

John Watson looked down at the pale wiry fingers so briefly and gently resting on the back of his hand before closing his other hand over them.

"Don't do things like this. Gestures. It worries me." His attempt at flippant words was truth trying to hide behind a bantering tone. It didn't fool either of them.

"I'm sorry," the apology was automatic. "Sorry. Take some time to think about it, John. Then talk to her tomorrow."

"Yes You're right. No point in going at this like a bull in a china shop. We'll talk about it tomorrow, Mary and me. See if I can learn…get a handle on it…see what she says."

"Good idea. Sleep on it first. Knew you'd be sensible."

He withdrew his hand from between those of John Watson and waited while his friend stood up and stepped away.

"I will protect her, John. I made a vow, remember? I will protect you both. And I will find the man behind all this, I promise. Stay strong."

"Yes."

He was inside his own head now, beyond politeness. And Sherlock Holmes cursed his own natural reticence. Reticent to discuss until he knew the answers…or some answers at least

"I'll see you later? I'm sorry, Sherlock. About - you know - being so short tempered."

"Nothing to apologise for. Perfectly natural reaction. Go home and sleep. I'm going to sleep. Been a long day."

But when he heard John Watson close the heavy front door behind him and walk away into the night, Sherlock Holmes went back to his mobile Completed the text he had been writing. Reviewed what he had written there.

 _Time flies over us and leaves it's shadows behind, he thought. You're searching so hard you've lost yourself. Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator_

 _Indeed so._

And ended the message.

 **Meet me in three hours. Raz's refuge in the old church. SH**

 _Enough time to skim all the reading he needed to check for leads. Speed read the files. Dip into the new memory stick and see if it held what he thought. Three hours. Enough time for John Watson to get home, shower, and be deeply asleep._

He hovered his thumb over the keys for long seconds in something that might have been indecision before he pressed the send button. And he was wide awake again now.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's Notes:**

Orrie Harker: Orrie is a forename for both sexes. But is also a female short form of Oriana, a Latin name from mediaeval times, and features in several epic poems of the period.. Tennyson wrote a poem called _The Ballad Of Oriana,_ and Oriana Falacci is a famous feminist author. One of Gatiss' favourite books is _Dracula:_ Jonathan Harker and his wife are central characters.

Orrie Harker's house and garden is in reality a private home in Cyncoed Road, Cardiff.

RinTinTin: Rescued in France during WWI by an American serviceman, RinTinTin became a silent movie star and was responsible for the popularity of German Shepherd dogs as pets. A series of descendants carried the name and starred in TV and film The original Rinty has a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa: this famous image was a wood block print by artist Katshushika Hokusai, published sometime between 1829 - 1833. The first of a series, _Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji_ , and the most famous, probably the most recognisable Japanese artwork of all.

Pekiti Tersia: Founded in the Phillipines, this is the most complex and effective form of open hand slaps as part of a close quarter fighting technique. Although apparently simple and quick to learn these blade like blows are sophisticated and can be varied to damage, defend, unbalance, knock out or kill.

Chacha, etno and shkhivan: Georgan spirits; chacha is brandy made from pomace, the grape residue from winemaking. Etno is apple brandy and shkhivan local gin.

Appointment In Sumatra: Sumatra (Jawi) is a large island un the Indian Ocean where 52 languages are spoken and with a rich history. In ACD canon the Giant Rat of Sumatra appears in The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire as an untold case 'for which the world is not yet prepared.' There is a genuine giant (two feet long) Rat of Sumatra, a unique subspecies, _Sundamys Infraluteus_. Samarra, however, is a city in Iraq north of Baghdad, a world heritage site; 'an appointment in Samarra' is a way of referring to death, from an ancient Babylonian myth.

Gerald Scarfe: English cartoonist and illustrator famed for his strong and fearless Gothic artwork. Most famous for designing the credits for the _Yes, Minister_ and _Yes, Prime Minister_ BBC TV series and work with Pink Floyd.

" a smiling stranger on a bus or a train:" A sideways reference to Euros in the guise of 'E' who chatted, flirted and sexted John Watson in _The Six Thatchers_.. As the girl on the bus has no direct bearing within this story, but is a subplot merely to pique interest in the two episodes of S4 that followed, I have chosen, for the sake of simplicity and through line, to omit this distracting part of T6T from _Meet Me In Samarra_ with the exception of this brief sideways reference.


	13. Chapter 13

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 13

Not all soulmates are sails to each other's ships. Some are storms to each other's shipwreck.

Neitszche

Sleep is not the same as unconscious. Nightmares are not the same as dreams. Waking is not the same as reviving. But guilt and shame and anger and failure are always the same, and always leave the same bitter aftertaste.

He started to rouse in the old armchair into which he had collapsed, the pain of muscle spasms wakening him, grimacing. Automatically rolling his tongue over his lips, tasting something chemical, metallic, bitter. Tasting powder - and defeat.

He knew he had been defeated by Mary Watson before he even forced his eyes open to see what he already knew - that she had gone.

 _I am an idiot. I know nothing. Except._

 _Not dead._

o0o0o

Words he had originally spoken in assessment of himself, and in judgement. As painful to say as the thought had been.

"I am an idiot. I know nothing,"

Not melodrama nor complaint. Just a statement of fact.

He spoke as the door of the vestry to St Michael's Church opened on silent hinges. He knew who was coming with a light step and a slight billow of distinctive _Clair de la lune_ perfume.

From homeless graffiti artist to church youth worker, Stuart Race had turned his life around in the past three years, but the boy that had been Raz did not forget his friends, so whenever Sherlock Holmes needed a secret nocturnal workplace that had light and power, a laptop and a kettle, Raz lent him a key and asked no questions.

He had asked no question that evening, but stood on his doorstep and looked pointedly at the fresh bruise underneath Sherlock Holmes's eye.

"Need help, do you?"

"Thank you, but no."

"Thought not." A nod and a wry grin. "Give a shout if you do, though. OK?"

No more was said. They simply nodded to each other And then the consulting detective went to the vestry to wait for the predator that would come to his lure. To read and scroll and to think…..

"I am an idiot. I know nothing."

"Well, I've been telling you that for ages." Mary Watson stepped inside the vestry, a warm shadowed refuge from the rain teeming down outside in the concentrated way it only did in the middle of the night.. She put the torch that had guided her through the gloomy overgrown churchyard into her anorak pocket, lowered the anorak hood and shook the rain from her hair before smiling gently at him. "That was quite a text you sent me. What's going on, Sherlock?"

Now she was here he was distracted; unable to decide what attitude to assume, what approach to take. Thoughtful and distracted

"I was so convinced it was Moriarty, I couldn't see what was at the end of my nose. I expected a pearl." He was having a conversation with himself more than with her. Annoyed? Apologetic?

She heard him and was puzzled. wondering why he did not instantly verbally attack or explain himself. But knew the complexity of his mind well enough now to be able to wait until he was ready to explain why she had been summoned in the middle of the night. And with such a strong, almost melodramatic, text.

 **Imperative we speak immediately. Your life will depend upon it. Meet me in three hours. Raz's refuge in the old church. SH**

He did not look at her directly, but instead he looked down - at what was in his hand. Opened his fingers holding the object within and turned his palm so she could see for herself what absorbed him.. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight. Of a stainless steel, large and rather old fashioned memory stick.

Something within her went very cold, and she dared move a step closer. To see the four initial letters scrawled in permanent marker upon the side. Upon a permanent marker that told of her life held within it.

"Oh, my God," she exclaimed softly. Not an original line, but a true expression of her surprise. The shock, the potential horror. "That's a…."

"Yes, it's an AGRA memory stick like the one you gave John," he interrupted, voice careful and words spoken deliberately without pressure. "Except this one belongs to someone else. Who?"

Their eyes locked, not onto each other, but onto the stick. As if it would talk and admit it's own secrets.

"I don't know. We all had one, But the others w…" she paused, thinking furiously. What to do. How to do it. If she would even need to….And then a realisation, or a hope. "You mean you haven't looked at it yet?"

He looked across at her, laser vision meeting her eyes properly for the first time. An unexpected sadness there, she saw, disillusion at the question certainly, but she also had no doubt of his bleak resolve.

"I glanced at it, but I'd prefer to hear it from you." However softly spoken there was steel in the voice, and she recognised that with a jolt. Reality check.

"Why?" A parry gaining time to think as much as a solid question.

"Because I'll know the truth when I hear it."

Objective always, she thought. Always the seeker after truth. However much the truth might hurt him. Or her. Because he actually knew the truth would hurt her. But he could not pull back or turn away from truth or morality. And she suddenly found his iron resolve, that conflict within him, so humbling and yet so oddly reassuring it drew an almost physical response from her.

Oh, Sherlock… " she whispered as she turned away from him to disguise the tears that welled in her eyes for that moment before she could blink them away. Walked a few paces to establish distance, then turned with fresh resolve to face him.

"There were four of us," she began finally, firmly, as if by rote. "Agents."

"Not just agents." he corrected.

"Polite term," she prevaricated. "Alex, Gabriel, me and Ajay."

"Yes. I know. Aleksandr Sor, the Ukranian team leader. The German Gabriel Gratz. You - not Mary Morstan, but Ro Adams at that time. Ajay Moopanar."

She gave a curt nod of acknowledgement.

"How much do you know?"

"Nothing. Until you confirm what is truth."

He was being direct, unbending. Clinical. She could not have faced sentiment or softness, apology or discretion. He knew that.

"Hmm." She decided honesty was the best policy: he would know lies if he heard them. And whatever happened now, he deserved her honesty. After all he had done to help and protect….

"There was absolute trust between us. The memory sticks guaranteed it. We all had one. Each containing aliases, our backgrounds, everything. We could never be betrayed, because we had, in the possession of each of us, everything needed to destroy each other."

"Who employed you?"

"Anyone who paid well." She shrugged, hearing how harsh her words seemed. " I mean, we were at the top of our game for years."

"And what put you there?"

"Some sort of alchemy, I suppose. As individuals we all had separate careers. And I suppose part of our success was that none of us had come down the usual route for mercenaries. Not standard armed forces training; we thought out of the box, as a team and as individuals. And that was where our talents lay. Fast thinking, nothing standard. How we so often pulled off the impossible."

"Explain."

His one word order was peremptory. But she found she did not want to cavil or contradict. He deserved her truth. And now she found she wanted to tell him all she could, all he needed to know. To keep this hard and extraordinary man on her side. Where, she realised in a sudden rush of recognition, guilt and something that might have been shame, he had always been.

Killing for her as well as being killed by her. Hiding his caring behind hauteur and impassivity, made every word of care and concern he had ever uttered sound like criticism or clever cliche. Concern if not comfort. Protective, not passive.

"Alex started his career as a firefighter. Into body building, cage fighting, he found his talent. He recruited Gabriel, who had been in the German police force, but a bit too individualistic to rise through the ranks. Then me - a skill set I originally learned to protect the vulnerable. And then the baby of our team, Ajay.

"He had been a child soldier with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Always too old for his years, too experienced in violence to ever be ordinary. We were a great team. And then it all ended."

She grimaced at memories she had not brought to the surface for years. Did not understand why his face twisted. "There was a coup in Georgia. The British Embassy in Tblisi was taken over. Lots of hostages. We got the call to go in, get them out."

"AGRA, was that? Or RAGA?"

"How did you know that? That we did that one mission as RAGA?"

"I am Sherlock Holmes," he said unhelpfully.

Which made her smile; and sadly. But probe no further. Because she had other things to do, now.

"I was nominated mission leader because I had met Julia Tregarron before. Because it was thought woman to woman lead would be lucky as well as empathetic." She tilted her head with a fleeting grin at the inaccuracy and irony of that decision.

"Then there was a change of plan, a last minute adjustment."

He nodded. She was granting him truth, and he recognised that. He appreciated it, but did not say so. That would be too sentimental. "Who from?"

"I don't know. I didn't take the call, Gabriel did. Just another voice on the phone, he said, and the vital code word: Ammo."

"Ammo?"

"Like ammunition," she explained. "There had been other attempts at rescue that had not succeeded. The position was too defensible, basically. We decided to give it a shot - someone had to. But we were brought forward twenty four hours by a change of plan. We didn't think anything of it at the time; this sort of thing happened, circumstances on the ground could change rapidly and need instant reaction.

"It was only later, after everything, it struck me bringing the mission forward had taken people by surprise, muddied the waters and complicated things generally."

"Did you work out why?"

"No. Did you?"

"Continue your narrative, please."

She bowed her head, wondered why she was not protesting. Just continued.

"So we went in. But something went wrong. Something went really wrong."

"How?"

"I don't know. It all happened so fast. Now….now I suspect there was someone on the inside, wielding power from elsewhere. That the change was in the baddies' favour, to defend their position. Bring more terrorists in. Outnumber us. Rob us of any advantage.

"Guerrillas we did not know about who popped out of hiding places. An ambush in a corridor. Russian and English speakers as well as Georgians. A man mountain with gold teeth who used a female hostage as his shield. Kids screaming…"

"What kids?"

"The four kids there with their parents. Holed up in a little room on a half landing."

"And irrelevant. Was that when were you caught in crossfire?"

"Yes. We rappelled down from the roof via wind-out Edwardian skylights. We knew we were on an all or nothing attack: if we failed everyone could end up dead. Which was what happened."

"Mary. Concentrate. Facts, not feelings."

"Yes Sorry, I…" She wiped a still gloved hand across her face. "Not remembering is hard. Has been all this time. Remembering is harder."

"Get on with it."

"Yes. Sorry." She repeated, focussed again. "We shot the guards in the ballroom. Checked out the hostages there. I focussed on the ambassador and her husband. They were sitting at one end of a refectory table, wrapped in blankets, playing chess.

"He was in shock. She was mouthy; but fear reveals itself in different ways. I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. He followed. Another woman, at the other end of the table; came too."

 _Tamora. It had to be!_

"The ambassador asked what had taken us so long to get to them. I made some quip about not being able to get the staff; which was true enough, as it happened.

"The British government should never have brought in freelancers. But they were desperate. We knew that. It upped our payment level. Worth a shot."

"Yes." He thought of Mycroft and Lady Smallwood. Objective and determined. Making their decisions. Determining fates and lives. Writing history. Day upon day.

And a fraught conversation.

"In that silence afterwards, before the innocent victims slide into shock, we hurried them out into the corridor, to get them out fast; expecting more armed terrorists o show. And they did. Unfortunately.."

She was looking at him, but not seeing. Her eyes were turned inwards, looking back six years as if it was only six minutes ago.

"We had learnt the layout of the hotel in planning, and were heading for the most direct route out. There was a crossing of corridors, We paused. Alex shouted 'To your left!' So all the hostages turned that way.

"We started to move, then a little cadre of Georgian soldiers suddenly appeared. Before we could react the lead soldier shot out the lights. Not good. Screaming, ducking…more armed civilians behind us. No idea where they came from; and shouting in Russian..

"We shoved the ambassador, the husband, the other woman, back into the ballroom - no time to move anyone else to a defensible position. Anyway, she was the most important hostage. We paused to weigh options we didn't have.

"Then another guerrilla, appeared, holding the neck of a female hostage. One of the secretaries. Gun at her head. He grinned. Gold teeth. Built like a block house, relentless. You know the type. The ones you always find in the midst of death and power struggles because they enjoy it. Other people's fear. I will never forget him.

"Ajay, next to me, ripped off his balaclava. Defeated.

"'What now?' he asked. 'What do we do?' Bloody stupid question. I pulled off my own balaclava. 'We die,' I said, looking Gold Teeth Man in the eye. Defying him. He just laughed. There was no way I would have time to shoot him before he shot his hostage. So I pulled a flash bang out of my squeeze pocket and hurled it to the floor.

"Turned my face away. But mine was thrown at the same time someone else did the same thing. The collective noise and light and impact…..the repercussion…..caught us. Good as a hand grenade. Flung us backwards. I remember hearing screaming, hostages running, as I landed on my back.

"There were bodies on top of me. Some sort of fire fight - between the Russians and the Georgians, I think. Which didn't make any sense. As I struggled to get up I saw Gabriel shot and fall. Saw Ajay grabbed and dragged backwards by the man with the gold teeth. Who had shot his female hostage anyway.

"I blacked out then. Under that heap of people, dead and alive. When I came round - I don't know how long later - everything was silent and everyone around me dead."

She shook her head as if to clear it of such painful and vivid memories.

"That was six years ago. Feels like forever. I dragged myself out, escaped through the skylight and over the rooftops. No-one spotted me. I spent two days at our safe house, getting over concussion and shock, hoping the others would turn up. They never did. AGRA was no more.

"From that day I became….something else. Without AGRA…I couldn't do it any more. Because I was alone then, the only one who got out."

"No."

"What?"

Sherlock Holmes crossed to the old desk in the centre of the vestry and wordlessly pulled a laptop towards him. Put the memory stick he had been holding into the drive.

"I met someone tonight," he said almost conversationally as the information loaded. "The same someone who was looking for the sixth Thatcher."

Long fingers played across the keyboard. The screen changed, and he manipulated images. Then stood back without comment so she could see what came onscreen Two surveillance photos then a photo ID press pass for a journalist called Eshan Mohindra.

But the face was the face of Ajay Moopanar.

"Oh my God, that's Ajay. " The identification was hardly needed, but formalised things. "That's him. What? He's alive?

She was absorbed, delighted, smiling and happy.

 _So that's what affection looks like on Mary. Yes. I know that look. But she won't be so happy in a moment. My responsibility. I am both a total shit and the voice of truth. Little wonder the messenger is the one that always gets shot. But she won't shoot me. She won't. Not again._

Yes," he confirmed, trying and failing to keep the irony from his voice. "Very much so." Unconsciously fingering the bruise under his eye Ajay had put there.

She was oblivious to the tone of his voice and his body language.

"I don't believe it This is amazing! I thought I was the only one alive! I thought I was the only one! I thought I was the only one who got out."

Finally she took her eyes from the screen and turned to Sherlock Holmes.

"Where is he? I need to see him! Now!"

He put out a hand in warning; to steady her. To slow her reactions down. Instead of answering he asked:

"Before you gave it to John, did you keep your memory stick safe?"

"Yeah, of course." She looked at him as if he was slow, as if some sort of idiot.

 _She should know better! Sentimental, in this moment, not professional….she's not irredeemable, then._

"It was our insurance," she explained, exasperated. "Above all they must not fall into enemy hands."

"And it hasn't. Unless that enemy is me." He paused, waiting for her to speak. But she just looked at him as if not understanding his words, his caution. "So Ajay survived as well, and now he's looking for the memory stick he managed to hide all that time ago. His own memory stick. With all of AGRA's old aliases, all their sensitive information, stored on it. But why?"

"I don't know!" And she wailed the words as if the reason did not matter. Her professionalism gone. And the strength of her personality with it.

"Tblisi was six years ago. Where's he been?"

She looked down, thinking. Looked away, made a sad and angry, helpless little sound. Shuddered a breath. Still smiling, still lost in memory and in hope. He waited for something to die behind her eyes as she worked things out, but it did not.

"The way he is going about this does not bode well, Mary," he offered, again with that unexpected gentleness." Perhaps he ran away from danger, then, and is now picking up the threads of his old life. Perhaps he was shot and hid away until he was healed and courage returned. Perhaps he was injured and lost his memory until now. Perhaps he found a better life. Or was a prisoner of the state. Or of the guerrillas. Perhaps he has been living a new life happily and is just nostalgic for the past. Except he has now killed someone."

He abruptly stopped talking and she looked at him blankly; as if the words were not going in. Then that untypical soft voice again.

"Mary, I'm sorry to tell you this, but he wants you dead.".

She laughed then, in disbelief. Looked at the photos again and with affection, a rare warmth in her eyes.

"Sorry, no," she stated, against all the evidence he was offering her." No. 'Cause we were family."

"Families fall out. The memory stick says who is he, but also holds all he needed to know. Not just to ensure his survival onies, perhaps Contacts, yes But also to remind himself of you, the only other survivor. Who you were. So having the memory stick is the easiest way to track you down.

"The only other survivor. It must be you he wants, and he's already killed looking for the Thatcher bust."

"Well, he's just trying to find me. He survived. That's all that matters."

"Wake up, Mary! I heard it from his own mouth - 'tell her she's a dead woman walking.'"

Her head came down, the sparkle finally dulled behind her eyes.

"Why would he want to kill me?"

"He says you betrayed him."

"Oh no, no, that's insane."

She shook her head vehemently, looked back at the face on the computer screen. The smile still lingered.

"Well, that's what he believes," he answered, rather dully, out of arguments against her stubborn certainty.

She heard something absolute in him then; tore her eyes from the image, gave a huge sigh, sank down into a chair. Dipped her head as if all the energy left her in a rush.

"I suppose I was always afraid this might happen. That something in my past would come back and haunt me one day."

It sounded like an admission of defeat as well as a final acceptance of reality.

He looked away from her and put a hand automatically to his bruised ribs and twisted a half smile; ironic, inevitable.

"Yes, well, he's a very tangible ghost.".

She did not smile or reply, just folded in on herself, shrinking into the chair.

"God! I just wanted a bit of peace, and I really thought I had it."

He turned to her and looked properly at what he saw; disappointment, anti climax and disillusionment. Underlying fear.

Took a step closer, leaned down into her personal space to catch her attention and impress his sincerity upon her.

"No, Mary. You do. You do have peace. I made a vow, remember?"

She looked up at him with a total lack of expression.

"To look after the three of you," he continued.

The tiny smile those words prompted would have broken his heart if he had one.

"Sherlock the dragon slayer," she said. He frowned The words sounded….almost fond. No accusation, no criticism. Fond. And he was puzzled by that. "What would we do without you?"

"Stay close to me and I shall keep you safe from him," he said in a rush. Low and vehement . "I promise you."

She did not answer him directly but stood up, that sad little smile still on her face, shaking her head a little, eyes still blue and deep and somewhat elsewhere. That look disturbed him somehow, but he could not say why.

"There's something I think you should read," she said thoughtfully. Took a folded sheet of paper from her anorak pocket, and passed it to him with a gloved hand. A paper from her pocket. He automatically took it, unfolded it as he spoke.

"What is it?"

"I hoped I wouldn't have to do this."

Her words made no sense. But the paper passed from her gloved hand into his bare hands. He unfolded the single sheet of high class writing paper, passed to him with such care, with both hands, looking at her intently as he did so. Her expression told him nothing, and he finally looked down onto the paper he held.

There were no words there. Just a white powder within the paper folds, something soft and light. An aroma of mint and metal.

Almost immediately his fingers started to tingle where they made contact with the paper, and his vision started to swim.

 _I am inhaling a fast acting sedative. I am an idiot. I know nothing. Except that I am an idiot._

 _I trusted her. Against the lesson of experience. I trusted her. I am stupid. Human. Allowing myself to be human only leads to failure. I have failed. She has killed me again. Why do I never learn…..? How….?_

"What are you….?" he began, mouth dry, words failing him.

Inhaled despite himself. Unable to believe she had duped him, betrayed him, despite his promise and vow of protection. Inhaled sharply - the shock of disbelief, and duped.

 _A chemical cosh. All she can wield against me. Unless she has her gun. But chose not to use it? Why not use it? No-one would hear in this isolated refuge of the small hours with it's thick stone walls. No- witnesses, no evidence. Gloved hands._

 _Poison? Sedative? Hepatoxic? Nephrotoxic? Midazolam is a fast acting sedative. No. Not that. Isoflurane, sovoflurance? Why guess. Haven't a clue. What does it matter? Probably an animal sedative anyway. Not for human consumption probably, and enough to topple an elephant._

 _Or perhaps some Russian obsolete nerve agent she has been keeping by her for years; for an occasion such as this? For when any ally or friend is to be stopped from close up.. …dropped down dead._

He gasped and started to falter.

"Mary….?" The word was a whisper; all he could manage. It felt like deja vu. It felt like death.

He distantly registered her hands reach for him, take him by the elbows and guide him gently down into the chair behind him. Make a small sound in her throat.

 _This is no way to kill an adversary. With kind hands and gentleness….how shaming, to be sent home so softly….._

"There you go…." Her voice was soothing, as if to a child. To Watson.

"Oh, no…."

 _Feeble! Feeble!_

"It's all right." She gathered his fallen hands and lifted them, laced them into his lap. Drifted a kiss across his forehead. "It's for the best, believe me."

"No."

Another feeble protest as he fought to remain conscious..

As his eyelids flickered closed he was vaguely aware of Mary Watson turning to the laptop and removing the memory stick.

"Ssh. Don't fight it. You think you're dying? Sssh."

 _So this is how you betray and repay a dear and trusted friend? Thanks for that…_

He was aware of her dark shape in motion then, how she paused in the doorway to turn back, smile gently at him: or was that his imagination? Hallucination? Wishful thinking? Wishing she wasn't lying. That he wasn't dying.

"You just look after them until I get back," she said. As if part of an ongoing conversation. Paused. And then her voice cracked.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. I'm so sorry."

 _You bloody well said that last time! You still shot me!_

And then she was gone His eyes closed. And everything stopped.

o0o0o

Mary gone. Memory stick gone. Drug effect gone. Courage and commonsense gone. Strength gone. Never mind. Irrelevant.

 _Up. Move. Find Mary before she does something brave. Something stupid. Something life changing._

It was cold outside. The rain had stopped. Dawn was breaking and he realised hours had passed. He sagged in the doorway to wait for strength and purpose to return.

 _Too late! Thanks to Mary, I am going to be too late to halt chaos …do anything at all._

He shuddered down into the Belstaff. Looked up at the sky as if for inspiration. Leaned forward and fell into motion. Stumbled, then ran….

o0o0o

He was kneeling on the door step, picking the lock of the solid Victorian front door, when it flung open without warning, almost pitching him forward onto his face.

He caught hold of both sides of the door frame to stop himself falling flat, and looked up into the face of John Watson. Eyes hard and intense.

"Where is she?"

"Is she still here?"

They spoke over each other, words jumbled, meaning clear. Then both stopped talking at the same time. Blankly looked at each other. John Watson was the first to recover himself.

Looked at the dropped picklocks shining on his doorstep, the tall dishevelled man on his knees before him, and grimaced.

"Why can't you just knock on the bloody door, like anyone else?" he asked.

"I did. And rung the bell. No-one answered. For a moment I thought….." his voice trailed away as he bent his head to pick up his tools and replace them in their suede and velvet roll. A useful distraction to hide the tumult and fear that had surged within him and was slow to die back.

 _For a moment I thought she might have killed you and Rosamund. And run. Left nothing and no-on behind to give her away. Disappeared into thin air. As if she had never been here…._

"Thought what?"

"Oh! Not a lot. Not really. Sorry." He took a deep breath, demanding self control. "Sorry. Tired. No time to waste….."

"I was actually bathing Rosie and putting her back to bed. Bit of disturbed night. Better things to do than answer the door. Someone has to attend to her." The edge of bitterness and pain was all too evident.

So he pushed himself upright and waved a dismissive hand. As if caring for Watson was beneath him. As if he didn't care about anything either way.

"I assume Mary's no longer here, then?"

"Well deduced, genius."

They stood immobile, facing each other, neither seeming to want to give way.

Sherlock Holmes could read the anger and fear in John Watson's face, and felt his own hope and shoulders fall.

"May I come in?" he asked with rare humility. Watched his friend hear that tone, and frown. But he stepped back, closing the door behind the consulting detective as he finally got to his feet and moved inside, then followed him down the hallway into the sitting room.

They looked silently at each other across the hearth rug. As if neither wanted to speak first. But it was John Watson, again, who did so.

"What did you do to her, Sherlock? Did you threaten her? What did you say to make her run?".

"I….no…..I. You've got it wrong, John. Not me. I didn't…. No. I couldn't….." he heard himself stammer, unable to articulate properly.

 _Far too tired for this. Too tired for anything. Concentrate!_

"She's done a bloody runner!" The voice touched an edge of hysteria. "Who else would be responsible for that, hmn?"

"It's not my fault! You have got to believe me! This is not my fault!"

"Then whose fault is it?"

" An old associate is trying to find her. He thinks - wrongly - that Mary betrayed him. And he wants…he wants….."

"He wants to bloody kill her. Doesn't he? Am I right? "

A nod. No words. No words would do.

"Who is he? How did he find her?"

"His name is Ajay Moopanar. He was part of AGRA with her. A Tamil boy soldier before that. I'm not sure how he found her…."

 _His own memory stick was the key. Surely? Not totally certain. Coincidence, certainly. Still my fault. My fault._

 _Or would it all have happened anyway? Regardless of him? Regardless of the photos he had taken to Tblisi to show Sirius. Just trying to be efficient. Not knowing someone would steal his bag, find the memory stick hidden inside._

 _Then look at the photos Actually recognise a bride at a wedding. The bride photographed with the best man…how could he have know -_ _ **how could he?**_ _\- that those photographs could mean something to a common street thief in Tblisi?_

 _And that in a domestic swimming pool in Reading there would be a showdown that almost led to death and certainly led to betrayal?_

 _Basic facts: Ajay and Mary had been in Tblisi. Ajay and Mary were half of AGRA and had AGRA memory sticks. Ajay had hidden his memory stick in a bust of Margaret Thatcher for safety._

 _The events in Tblisi still cast their long shadow. And that shadow was darkening the lives of everyone connected with Mary, especially. So long thought to be the only survivor from AGRA. So perhaps not all his fault, then. Perhaps this had been going to happen anyway. Fate only delayed in tripping them up. Mary's past. And Ajay' s . Together._

"You knew he had found her. Only you knew. Until you told her. What a surprise. You in the centre of things, as ever. And none of them good So you texted her. To come to you so you could warn her. Why didn't you tell me, too? Tell us both -together? Like we are a couple?"

"I'm sorry. I think I hoped…that between us, between Mary and me, we could stop this before it started. Not have to worry you or involve you. You and Rosie. "

"Oh, how bloody noble of you! You and Mary. Mary and you. As always these days. Like bloody twins, aren't you? Thick as thieves. Hurtling towards death and disaster, as you are both so starved of it and can't live without it. And sod me. Sod the mere husband."

"John. No! You know we don't think like that! Stop being so emotional. And just tell me what happened. So I can make this mess go away. Make everything right."

"Sherlock back on his white charger galloping to the rescue, eh? How predictable. How boring! Well it doesn't bloody work like that. Not any more."

"Stop spitting at me! And get a grip! Whatever you care to think, Mary doing a runner is not my fault! So tell me what happened! And quickly!"

"What difference will that make? She's gone."

"Yes, but as yet she only has a head start. And the sooner I get after her the better."

"No."

"What?"

"I've got to stop this. This is nothing to do with you any longer."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Nothing ridiculous about it. Leave you in charge - or in fact put you anywhere in the mix - and my wife reverts to what she used to be. A black op specialist, an assassin. And now she runs away. Might never come back. Abandons me and Rosie, a not quite grieving widower and a baby to bring up on my own . How terrifying do you think that is, eh? Or can't you get your head around that, Mr Alone-Protects-Me and all that bollocks?"

"Just tell me what happened!"

John Watson clenched his hands into fists, and only by a great effort of will turned away and stepped out of arm's reach before he lashed out.

"Where to begin? OK." He sucked in a huge breath and squared his shoulders.

"I was on a late at the surgery last night. Came home to find Mary making tea. Nothing unusual in that. Except a few minutes after I drank it I fell asleep on the sofa. Not like me. I was tired, but not that tired. Something in the tea? I think so. After what happened."

"What happened?"

"As I was drinking my tea, she was busy. Sorting the laundry, she said. But she was twitchy. More than usual. She has been twitchy for sometime. I kept telling myself it was normal, adjusting to motherhood and all that. But at the back of my mind,,,,I've kept thinking….it was my fault. That I wasn't good enough for her, that I was too boring."

"You're not boring, You know that. No-one thinks you are boring. "

John Watson gave his friend a dark, dismissive look, Ignored his words. Kept on talking.

"And for some reason I remembered what you had said….about her keeping a gun under the sink. Good God, there are times I wish you would stop talking….." He shook his head.

"So while she was in the bedroom I looked. I actually looked in the kitchen. Didn't trust, for once. Checked very carefully. No gun. But there was an empty old soda crystal box with a gun sized space in it And that faint but undeniable smell of gun oil. A smell once known, never forgotten. She had taken her gun; she had her gun on her."

For a moment he choked on his words. Shook his head again and continued.

"I don't know what she was doing in the bedroom, but she wasn't sorting laundry…..but dare I ask her? When I knew she had a gun on her? Because I believed you, Sherlock. I believed everything you had said, God help me. And I wasn't sure - I just was not sure - what she planned to do with it That gun.

"And what sort of admission is that for a man to make about his wife, the mother of his child? That he fears she could kill him, and would, if she had to? And I still don't know what to do."

 _So. She had a gun with her in the vestry. Then chose not to use it on me. Chose not to poison me, either. Just drug me so I could not follow Or help. Oh, Mary!_

"John….."

"Shut up." His voice unexpectedly cracked. "I don't want to hear what you have to say. Not any more. My life has been a roller coaster since you came back from the dead. Why did you come back? To haunt me? Make my life a misery? Well let me tell you something - that worked!

"And now my wife has walked out and left me, just the way you did! What in hell is it about me that makes the people I love most in the world walk out on me?

And Sherlock Holmes dropped his head before his best friend's vehemence and wondered if he would ever be able to stop apologising

"I left to save…well, you know. Then returned to my life. Which had you in it. Sorry that doesn't suit you. But it's not like that!"

"Yes. It. Is. It is. And it all comes back to you. Every wrong thing that ever happens. There you are. In the middle of it."

He looked back.

"And here you are now. What are you even doing here, Sherlock?"

"Where else would I go to find her? I thought she might be still here. I was trying to stop her…"

He spun on his heel in angry frustration, put his hands to his head in something like anguish. Then spread his arms wide. It looked melodramatic. Felt like desperation. And everything was just too much.

"You ask me what I'm doing here? Trying to keep my vow to protect you all. Trying to stop this car crash that's happening in slow motion. She must have got my text just before you arrived home. She chose not to tell you. To act alone." He took a step forward, anger and impotence trying to break through. "Try not asking me why she did that! Try not blaming me, for once!

Another step.

"Look at me, John! See the bruise on my face? Ajay put it there He tried to kill me last night. Drown me or shoot me or beat me to death. He didn't care which. He promised me he would kill Mary, that I was to tell her she was a dead woman walking. So what was I meant to do with that?" Anger was building and he was trying to contain it; not blame her husband for his own shortcomings, his own failure.

"Call you at work and ask if you could spare five minutes between other people's haemorrhoids and heart attacks to discuss it ?

"I texted Mary; asked her to meet me so I could warn her, explain. Sensible of me. Logical, yes? But what did she do then? She drugged me. And left me. I was out for hours while she got a head start. She wouldn't even consider letting me help her, and clearly wouldn't let you, either.

"She's the one gone off on the white charger to protect us all. Not me! Stupid bloody woman! Stupid! Stupid! Why can she never listen to me?"

He could hear himself shouting. Trying to make the truth be heard. Trying to make John Watson listen.

"Because she's the professional, and she still thinks I'm just an amateur! And she's wrong!"

Shouting, now. He didn't shout. He never shouted. That lacked self control, control of the situation. But he was so tired. And too tired to care any more.

"Keep your voice down! You'll wake Rosie!"

 _I will! I'm sorry. Waking your sleeping god daughter is not what good godfather's do!_

"John," he said, suddenly deflated, and almost beyond speech.. "That is the very least of out worries."

It was as if the world stopped moving. As if the sudden silence disturbed the sleeping baby, not the shouting that had preceded it. For little Rosie coughed and then wailed. Wailed again. Started crying in a rhythm, steadily rising in volume.

Sherlock Holmes clicked his tongue irritably against his teeth. Slumped down into an armchair. The straw that broke the camel's back was tiny and pink and unintentionally demanding.

John Watson watched him fold down into the upholstery. Open his mouth to speak and decide against it, then close his eyes, tremulously put one grimy hand across his face.

"Sherlock….I….wait. Just wait. This conversation is not over."

"Never expected it was. No. Off you pop, Daddy duties."

He clamped a hand, on each knee, braced his arms, locked out the joints. Hunched his shoulders and bowed his head. Exhaled. John Watson watched him, perplexed, for a long moment before striding up the stairs, trying not to think or to panic or to simply burst into tears.

"It's OK, baby. Daddy's coming"

o0o0o

He came back downstairs with a sleepy child settled absently on his hip, one hand holding her safe, the other holding an envelope.

"I just found this. In the nappy basket, in the pile. As if she had timed it for me to find on the second nappy change after she left…..it's Mary's handwriting."

It was as if he could not take his eyes off the envelope, passing the child one handed to Sherlock Holmes. Who had not moved while he had been upstairs, but now accepted the tiny burden without comment or fuss.

And settled a sleeping Rosamund Watson into the crook of his arm and sat back into the armchair.

"I don't know if I want to read this."

"You don't have a choice." The voice was quiet to not disturb the peaceful baby, but the steel was still uppermost.

John Watson, opposite him now, sitting tensely on the sofa, opened the envelope and read his letter impassively, his expression revealing nothing. Eventually he looked up at Sherlock Holmes and then away without saying a word.

"John. Give it to me to read for myself. Or just read it aloud. I'm not psychic."

John Watson looked up. Eyes red rimmed. Without comment he began to read, in a level, almost toneless voice.

" _My Darling,"_ he began,

" _I need to tell you this because you mustn't hate me for going away._

 _But a situation has arisen. As I always feared, my past has caught up with me._

 _I gave myself permission to have an ordinary life. After so much that was not ordinary. I so wanted my ordinary life. With you. Such a simple heartfelt goal._

 _I am not running away, I promise you that. I just need to do this in my own way, in my own time._

 _But I don't want you and Sherlock hanging off my gun arm. I'm sorry, my love._

 _I know you'll try to find me, but there's no point. I must do this and it must be alone. Get right away and not put you and Rosie in danger while I sort this. Every move is random and not even Sherlock Holmes can anticipate the roll of a dice._

 _So I need to move the target far, far away from you and Rosie, and then I'll come back, my darling. I swear I will. After I make sure we are safe forever_

 _You are the most important thing in my life. Remember that. And I will see you soon._

 _All my love,_

 _Mary."_

There was a brief pause, and John Watson did not lift his eyes from the letter in his hand. When he felt he could speak again, he looked up into Sherlock Holmes' eyes looking levelly at him.

"Short and sweet, and doesn't actually tell me a bloody thing. How typical is that?"

"She is telling you all you need to know. That she will be back. That her present and her future are more important than her past. That she loves you."

Such unusual words from him, and even more unusual analysis, spoken so quietly, put John Watson on the edge of panic.

"And a fat lot of good that does me. Leaving me to look after Rosie on my own, and to worry. Well, not worry exactly. More like panic.

"But I've a head start this time that I didn't have when you walked out on me.""

"What do you mean, John? What the hell have you done?"

"Accusing me of something, are we? Like using my brain? So let me tell you….." He watched with a frown, as if looking at strangers, distracted as Sherlock Holmes adjusted the baby in his arms to settle her more comfortably as her eyes drooped towards sleep.

"I never finished telling you what happened last night, did I?"

"So do it now and stop attempting melodramatic tension."

"Hmn." He hesitated between command and confession. Being an honest man who trusted his friend despite everything, he decided on confession.

"Don't know if she didn't put enough dope in my tea, but at one point I woke up and realised she wasn't in the house. That was when she'd gone off to meet you, wasn't it? So I got up, a bit groggy, wandered about a bit….there was a bag under the kitchen table. Wouldn't have noticed ordinarily, but - well - I was looking.

"I was asleep on the settee again when she came back. It woke me up. I was a bit fuddled, but still. She said she'd had a text from Janine needing help, stranded up west, her bag stolen. Mary said she'd been out to rescue her. But into the city in her anorak? My elegant wife? And the anorak was wet. And her boots, her trouser legs. Far wetter than if she had been on city streets, as if she had moved through long wet grass or something.

 _Overgrown churchyard. Neglected back path to the vestry. Pouring rain. Yes. Wet. Good enough excuse on the spur of the moment. Just not good enough to stand up to scrutiny._

"When she went into the bedroom to change her wet shoes, I went though her anorak pockets. And that's when I found the memory stick. I thought at first I was hallucinating, some sort of bad dream. Because at Christmas I threw her AGRA memory stick on the fire at your parents house.

"I froze, then. Didn't know what to do. I remember thinking: 'so much for talking it out with her like we discussed yesterday. But my phone was on the desk. And I've learnt a lot from you. How to be sneaky. How to mind my own back.

"So I took out the tracker you had put in my phone, and put it inside the memory stick instead. Took seconds, less time than it took to think of doing it. Put the stick back in her pocket.

"Lay back down on the settee, heart racing. She did not notice. Came downstairs, I heard her take it out of the pocket, put it into her bag. Felt like a bad dream then. Still does."

"And then?"

"She went into Rosie's bedroom; to say goodbye, I suppose. When she came downstairs she sat next to me. Called my name and shook my arm to see if I was awake. So I pretended to be still asleep, still drugged, God help me.

"Avoiding the difficult stuff again. Avoiding facing whatever it was. Because I knew it was going to be bad. And I feared that if I sat up, asked what she was doing, she would smile at me and shoot me without a qualm. Like she shot you.

"So instead she kissed me on the forehead, stroked my hand. Then she was gone. Before I realised it. I must have gone back to sleep…after effects of being drugged I guess. But I should have got up. Grabbed her. Stopped her. Kept her by me…"

"You think you would have been strong enough to stop her? I doubt that. She would have flattened you. You were right to be cautious. Self preservation. And because your daughter was going to need one of you to stay with her."

He looked down at the child, who had turned naturally into the warmth of his body. A tiny fist grasping dark material.

"Stop trying to make excuses for me, make me feel better." John Watson swallowed the break in his voice and glared at Sherlock Holmes. "I woke up because Rosie was crying. She needed changing. Mary wasn't here, and neither was her bag. Nor the gun."

Sherlock Holmes watched his friend put his hand to his face, shake his head.

"It's not your fault. Mary's past suddenly became her present. And that's how she chose to deal with it."

"Stop sounding so bloody reasonable! You're not usually reasonable! Tell me this was my fault, that I was in the wrong!"

"I won't. It would not be true. The only sin you have committed is the sin of omission. Of choosing not to read Mary's memory stick, learning her history. And how can I not tell you ignorance may have been bliss in your case? And has saved your life by default?"

"You really believe that?"

""What do you know of Carol Hastings or Ro Adams? Of Inge Sternberg, Lisa Ehmentral or Barbara Clarke? Gabrielle Ashdown? Margarita Schenk? Suzette Philippe or Mary Johnson, even?"

"Nurse friends of Mary? Did any of them come to the wedding?"

"All those women _are_ Mary. Women Mary has been. As for who she really is….? Well. Who knows? Not sure even Mary does any more."

"Oh, God. What am I going to do, Sherlock?"

"For a start we are going to keep an eye on that tracker; just for peace of mind, you understand."

"Why don't we just follow her? Wait until she stops moving? Then fetch her back from this random wandering she is doing to lead Ajay away?"

"That would serve no purpose. That is not what she is doing, whatever she says."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because Mary is clever. Have you ever heard of the Unreliable Narrator?"

"Like in Agatha Christie, you mean? Like _The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd_? The storyteller who lies?"

"Precisely so. The phrase was only coined in 1961, but is inherent to human nature, and first written down in a story by Aristophanes….a fascinating study. But I digress."

"You mean in her letter, about every move being random - that she is lying to me?"

Not exactly…."

He broke off to calm the baby, who had kicked and wriggled closer.

"There is no point in Mary moving around the word at random. It serves no purpose. All Ajay would need to do is find where she lives with her family and stake out this flat and just wait for her to return. Because she will obviously come back. She will always come back to those she loves most."

"But no successful military strike works unless egress is at least as good as the ingress. So AGRA will have had backstop plans, an endgame scheme. Ajay will know it as well as Mary.

"A worldwide network of dead letter boxes, hiding places, caches of money and equipment, safe houses, hidden accommodations. And Mary will be touring the world, emptying them all, closing them down. Herding Ajay from the front. Risky.

"Flushes Ajay out by removing his safety points, his source of funds and disguises. Drawing him to her with no-one else harmed.

"Typical of Mary. Objective and with strong potential to be lethal. But with a good head start…before he realises she has gone….before he realises what she is doing…then she might just pull it off. Have him understand her plan. Lure him to follow. Box him in, then neutralise. End all evidence of AGRA, burn her boats behind her. Stop Mary Watson becoming Mary Morstan again. Or Ro Adams Etcetera."

"Why do this now Why not before?"

"Because she had no reason to bother. She thought the rest of AGRA were dead. No-one to use or disturb AGRA's secret places and supplies. She could pretend there was nothing left. That her past was past. She had no clue a time bomb was ticking away behind her. Ready to explode."

"You mean….he really will kill her? If he get the chance?"

"Yes." He remembered those coal black eyes, their unblinking resolve. Tried not to physically react and show John Watson his very real fear. "But he will not get the chance. Mary is too clever. She has a plan. And whether she knows it or not, we are her backup."

"You make it sound simple."

"Do I? It's not. Never underestimate your wife. I did, and look at what happened to me. Shot. Drugged. Left behind."

"What do I do in the meantime?"

"Work, sleep, look after your child. And wait. That is what victims do. They wait. Not easy. Nothing we can do without more data."

"Oh, God. I'm not sure I can do this….."

"Of course you can. The godparents will step up to the plate. We will do whatever we can to help. And….." he hesitated. "You could always come home, To Baker Street. Let Mrs Hudson and me look after you both."

"No. I can't. I mean - thank you. But no. Rosie needs to be settled. And if Mary should come home unexpectedly….we need to be there. Waiting for her."

"The offer remains. Any time, John. Any time."

There was nothing else he could say.

He needed to get back to Baker Street. To get to the new computer files he had worked so hard to obtain. To read properly, assess and analyse. To get back to the mystery of Tblisi; if it's solution would free Mary Watson of her burden.

Baby Watson wriggled in his arms, and he held her up, offering her to her father; distracting the doctor from his fears.

"Take her, John. Put her back to bed. We have all had a broken night."

"Broken night, broken men," John Watson muttered, standing to stoop and take the baby. "You will be here when I come back down? You're not going to leave as soon as my back is turned?"

"I should…."

"Just a few minutes, please, Have a cup of tea with me before you go?"

A curt nod. A sigh of resignation.

"Good. Thank you."

o0o0o

He came slowly down the stairs, feeling as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His daughter had settled to sleep at once, but the break had given him time to think. He paused and looked across into the sitting room. Sherlock Holmes had not moved, was still sitting erect on the sofa. Hands on his knees, head slightly bowed, lost in thought. Nor an unusual sight.

John Watson went into the kitchen, made tea automatically. Kettle, water, mugs, tea bags. His hands moved without conscious thought.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," he began, speaking a little louder than normal so his friend in the next room could hear. Making the words sound like the honest confession they were.

"My mouth runs away with me when I'm worried. I am very worried. About what she might do. What might happen to her, what I will do if she doesn't come back.

"I shouldn't shout at you. I know it's not your fault, and it's certainly not your problem." He stood and blankly watched the kettle do very little.

"But, you see, you're the only person I can talk to about this. You once said you didn't have friends, that you only had one, and that was me. But I have even fewer friends than you. And I don't know how I'm going to do this on my own - look after Rosie, go to work, pretend my wife is not somewhere battling for her life; all our lives.

"But there you are. As always. Strong. Stalwart. By my side. Guiding and protecting. More than I'll ever know, I think. More than you'll ever tell me Because that's not your way, is it? Emoting. Confiding.

"I never tell you how much I need you, how many things I couldn't do without you. And I'm sorry, Sherlock I'll try to do better. Be the friend you deserve."

He carried the two mugs of tea into the sitting room.

"Did you hear me? Or is a reply of any sort just beneath your contempt. Sherlock?"

He put the mugs down on the corner of the coffee table. Then, struck by the total stillness and the silence before him, sat down on it and looked at his friend properly.

Who was, he suddenly realised, fast asleep as he sat there. An emptied shell of the man he knew.

He sat and looked. Sherlock Holmes was rarely still enough, or vulnerable enough, to be looked at. But now John Watson had time and could look, and saw far too much.

A jolt of something like fear went through him, to see Sherlock Holmes asleep like this. For Sherlock Holmes never slept in the presence of other people, always contained, always on his guard.

But John Watson remembered that just yesterday he had been complaining of too little sleep; and clearly had not slept for another twenty four hours; unless anyone thought being drugged counted?

With a grim smile he leant forward. His friend was even paler than usual, skin almost grey. Dark shadows showed under his eyes and cheekbones, stubble on his face; something never normally seen on a man so fastidious in his grooming and personal care. But his hair was also lank with dirt, nails grimy with mud, or blood, or both; and the watcher grimaced.

A fight he had said; a fight that could have been a fight to the death. And both times he had mentioned that, John Watson had ignored him. Lost in his own fear and anger, used to Sherlock Holmes being a drama queen, not really taking in the depth of what was being said.

There was a dark bruise under one eye, chipped knuckles, numerous scratches where ever he could see bare skin. And as they had talked earlier he had been alternately kneading his scarred wrists; a sure and distracted tell of pain and stress rarely allowed or exhibited.

And as John Watson leant forward to see, he could smell - not the usual Annick Goutal or Penhaligon cologne - sweat, and travel, alcohol, dried blood and grime. And the suit was crumple dried from saturation, the shirt stained, collar and cuffs filthy in a way John Watson had never seen Sherlock Holmes before.

"Jesus Christ, Sherlock. What in God's name has happened to you over the past few days? You've not washed or changed, and probably not eaten either. You utter lunatic. Sherlock!"

There was no response to the raised voice, the physical proximity.

John Watson put a hand over the left hand clenched around the left knee. No response. The hand felt cold, the pulse slow and steady. Filthy broken nails. Blue veins too evident. He prised the fingers open with difficulty. Stood. Held that freed hand and squeezed it. Still no reaction.

"Sherlock!" No reaction.

John Watson cupped one hand around the shuttered and damaged face and pushed a shoulder gently with the other. Sherlock Holmes slipped slowly sideways and down as his friend pushed a cushion between the settee's arm and his cheek.

A soft groan became a whimper, there was a little twist of movement, and the doctor froze. The tiny sound terrified him.

"Shush. It's OK. You're safe. Go back to sleep, Just getting you comfortable."

He prised the other hand from the right knee. Lifted the legs onto the settee and tugged off the scuffed shoes. Took a rug from the blanket box and covered the sleeping consulting detective. Pushed a lock of hair back from over the closed eyes; and his hand came away gritty and damp with sweat.

This was not good. Not right. Scary, in it's way, to see this proud and difficult man so dirty and defenceless.

He picked up his tea, and for a moment he stood, looking thoughtfully down at the man lying on his settee.

"I'm going to bed. Sod the fact it's a time I would usually be getting up. We've all had a heavy night. Or, in your case, nights. Just sleep now, Sherlock. Make up for lost time. You can't get back to work until you've recharged the batteries.

"Don't worry, mate. We'll sort this. And I'll see you right. So sleep."

He walked quietly from the room, started to shut the door and looked back. Sherlock Holmes still did not move. Finally slept.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Authors Notes** :

Vestry: Side room usually used as an office or changing room within a religious building.

Tamil Tiger child soldiers: The Sir Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, ran for many years and made a study of threatening or abducting children to be soldiers within their group. Children could be stolen from their homes or on their way to school, their parents threatened or killed if they protested. Thousands of children were stolen and turned into killers by the Tigers and various breakaway faction.

Under international law it became illegal to conscript soldiers under the age of 18, and a war crime to use children under 15.

Isofleurane etc: All known modern sedatives, but none in an outmoded powdered form. Inhaling powdered sedative or poison is however, a classic literary and dramatic staple used to great effect especially in Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy such as Webster's The White Devil, where the hero is affected by a powder poison in his helmet. Sadly, I cannot find details of any modern powder based rapid sedative that is inhaled. Which does not mean there is not one, of course!


	14. Chapter 14

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 14

Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all

GK Chesterton

And then he was gone. Nothing left behind but a crumpled cushion and a blanket folded and placed neatly on the arm of the settee.

John Watson stood in the middle of his sitting room and looked at the empty space, felt he had missed out on something important. cursed himself for not waking Sherlock Holmes and making him talk when he had fallen asleep; cursed Sherlock Holmes for being - well - Sherlock Holmes; cursed his wife for being the thing that she was. Cursed his child for tying him to his home and stopping him chasing after his wife and his friend and then….

What? Doing what? Saying what?

To be honest with himself he did not know. The realisation of this, and the sound he made as he groaned out loud into the empty room shocked him.

For a moment he allowed himself some self pity and wallowed in it.

Nothing had gone right in his life since Sherlock Holmes had left it, and nothing had gone right in his life since Sherlock Holes had returned.

His relationship with Mary Morstan had been unexpected, unsought. It started off as a tiny light shining in the darkness his life had become, then became his port in the storm of living, and then the love of his life.

But Sherlock Holmes had returned, and all the things, the ordinary settled things that had led him through grief into happiness and a new life, had changed too. Back into darkness and danger and a single gunshot that changed everything.

The ground under his feet had shifted, and the veil that had grown over his eyes, his brain and his personality was ripped away by the consulting detective's return from the dead with his acid wit, laser deduction and cold care intact. Until he returned from the dead for the second time, a survival that had blasted John Watson's life into pieces.

Perhaps it would not have been so bad if Sherlock Holmes had again become the remote and unchanging fixed point in his life But there was something different about him now. Something hard and hollowed, unapproachable but fragile inside. It as as if whatever had happened to him during his two years away had burnt something out of his soul, had scarred more than his back. Which made John Watson feel uneasy, and feel somehow responsible.

The impenetrable armour seemed more of an empty shell now, the implacable personality a pose. Vague worries about his friend seemed always present now. And reflected, he had slowly come to realise, a growing unease about his own position.

A wife who proved not to be what she had seemed - and more. A child unplanned and unexpected. A new life turning out to be something other than all he had hoped. Which left him uncomfortable and adrift, and wary about what being in love really was, and what it meant. But he was, he finally admitted to himself, a romantic: which made him vulnerable, more vulnerable than he had ever expected

And then his wife shot his best friend.

Loyalties were pushed to the limit. Doubts could no longer be denied. Torn between protecting his wife, whose action had appalled him, and healing his friend, whose understanding towards his wife horrified him, he felt both hopeless and helpless. Insecure. Emasculated.

Worse, somehow, because he knew Sherlock saw and read all those conflicted feelings within him. Those storm silver eyes would sometimes turn on him with unexpected empathy and understanding. But no words would come, there would be no discussion. 'Not my business,' said those eyes. 'Not my place. You are a couple, not part of a triangle with me in it.".

They both knew the bond between Mary and Sherlock - killer and victim - should not have happened, should not exist. But it did, and it was, and the fears and insecurities this created were his and his alone.

He knew that, in his heart. Knew his best man would always stand back, even though the intellect and the professional objectivity shared by his wife and his best friend put him in another, smaller, reality in comparison to theirs; he was both soldier and doctor, but still did not know quite what their connction was. Or what it led to. And the nagging feeling that somehow he and baby Rosie were now unwitting victims in what their life had become.

He could hear himself becoming churlish, selfish and complaining in the face of this. Frightened. Both Sherlock and Mary always met this behaviour with tolerant smiles and overarching politeness, which infuriated him. As if they understood him; understood too much of his new feelings of inadequacy. Despite being doctor and soldier, lover and detective. When even those roles seemed not quite enough when compared to Mary and Sherlock.

So much had happened in the past two years. And now, after avoiding it for so long, it was honesty he finally needed now, all the truths. To learn and accept, to grow and to understand. Not the passive ignorance he had chosen when he was still hurting. Not that noble ignorance any more

This time he did not want to make those well meaning but misguided mistakes. This time he needed to know all the truths that were going. To support his wife and eventually welcome her home. To share and delight in their daughter. To help Sherlock limit the damage the past was still exerting on them all, and remove the danger. Give them back the ordinary, simple lives they sought and had had and for a fleeting moment thought they had achieved.

He changed and fed and cared for his daughter. Feeling strength returning, the resolve growing within him.

"Come on, Rosie. Time to go and see Sherlock."

And they headed to Baker Street. To home and certainty and safety.

o0o0o

Mycroft Holmes was deep in thought, leaning back in his chair, feet up on his desk and hands clasped together in concentration or prayer, or both, and did not reaction except turn his head slightly and raise an eyebrow when his brother burst into his office.

As if this was an everyday performance. As in many ways it was.

"AGRA," Sherlock Holmes announced by way of greeting. Or it might have been a question. A proclamation, even.

His brother frowned a little.

"Agra?" he repeated. Blinked. Sought the information he needed in his mental files. As befitted an extensive MI6 background. "A city on the banks of the River Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India," he began to recite, as if by rote. "It is 378 miles west of the state capital Lucknow…."

"What are you? Wikipaedia?" his brother interrupted, unimpressed and bored by the display of superfluous knowledge As if he cared about the city of Agra, or was even interested.

"Yes," came the confident reply, smiling and oleaginous.

He slowly withdrew his feet from the desktop and sat properly, moving forward, leaning onto his hands, looking closely at his visitor. Agra was a game. Or a duel. Lunge, riposte, parry. Withdraw and assess.

Freshly showered and shaved, neatly dressed But a little ragged around the edges if anyone chose to see, a hint of sweat on his brow, sign of a troubled mind, that edgy little frown crinkling between the eyes that had been such a tell of concern from childhood onwards. Something Mycroft had never warned him about: because such a tell was far too useful.

"Then why aren't you telling me about the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort?"

And there was that sulky, childish tone of complaint as well. A sure sign of distraction, of puzzlement.

"You like to give the impression you know everything. I assumed you already knew them," Mycroft pressured calmly.

"Of course I already knew that. But this is a different Agra This AGRA is an acronym."

The smile was the smile on the face of a tiger; one that did not reach as far as the ice blue eyes. One that was not processing new knowledge. Assuming ignorance. A smile that said it saw too much and knew even more.

"Oh, good. I love an acronym All the best secret societies have them."

"A team of agents," Sherlock Holmes corrected. Wondered fleetingly, as he very rarely did, what it must be like to have a proper older brother. One who helped and guided, who laughed and joked and was a constant friend. "The best. But you know all about that."

"Of course I do" The tone was almost dismissive. "Go on."

Now he was veiling his genuine interest: process of the pawns in this great game they played. Pattern and predicament, predictability.

"One of them, Ajay, is looking for Mary. Who was also part of the team."

"Indeed? Well, that's news to me." In an arch tone that said exactly the opposite.

"Is it?" Healthy scepticism hidden behind a tone of merely polite enquiry. Two could play that game.

Mycroft lowered his head and smiled a secret smile to himself.

 _So. The child really is on his way through this conundrum to the heart of the maze._

"He's already killed looking for that memory stick."

For a moment he had a mental picture of Orrie Harker, sprawled on her untidy front lawn: the grey dressing gown and the bare feet. He had never known her in life, but the image of her in death persisted in his head.

"AGRA always worked for the highest bidder. I thought that might include you."

It was rare for him to ask such a direct question about the secret work that absorbed his brothers' every waking moment. But this time it was necessary. This time it counted in too many ways.

"Me?"

"Well, I mean the British government, or whatever government you are currently propping up." He pulled a hard breath. "So now stop playing games."

For a moment they looked at each other across the desk. Sherlock Holmes unrelenting and unblinking. Mycroft Holmes the confident alpha male, secure in his lair and in his role. Staring each other down. Revealing in their mutual implacability how much this meant to both of them Revealing more of the elder brother than the younger. How much both sought and needed truth.

So it was Mycroft who broke away first, capitulated to the demand.

"AGRA were always very reliable," Mycroft began ."Then came the Tblisi incident. They were sent in to free the hostages but it all went horribly wrong." He unconsciously echoed Mary Watson's own words, and the unwitting repetition made his brother wince.

"And that was that. We stopped using freelancers."

"Your initiative?"

"My initiative. Freelancers are too woolly- too messy. I don't like loose ends. Not on my watch."

"Tblisi was a loose end?"

"Of course. We were never able to answer the questions, explain the deaths. Why did the siege take place? Who was behind it? What was it meant to achieve? How did the whole sorry circumstance happen to allow the siege go on for so long? Why did attempts to break it keep failing? And why did AGRA bring the raid forward?"

"What did you say?"

"Which bit, precisely, did you not register?"

"The bit about bringing the raid forward."

"Well, yes. That is what they did. AGRA. They brought the raid forward. Without any discussion with, or direction from, us. Their employers The British Government Independent action was always a demerit against freelancers"

"No, Mycroft. No. You are wrong."

Sherlock Holmes half rose from the chair opposite. His brother's eyes narrowed.

"That was what happened, Sherlock. The raid went wrong All of AGRA were killed."

"Or so you thought."

"Giving me the criticism of hindsight, are you? Too easy. Unworthy of you." He paused, glared, continued.

"We learnt that for that one mission they were RAGA: led by the only woman on the team, Ro Adams. AGRA, or RAGA, if you prefer, were responsible for all the deaths, as well as their own. It seemed like poetic justice. 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' you might say.

"Harsh."

"Correct, however, and also politically convenient. There was nothing we could do. No-one alive to lean on for information. So we attributed the affair to international terrorists after the Georgian art treasures, and formally closed the file. There was nothing more we could do, nothing we could discover to solve the mystery."

"But…."

"Listen to what I'm saying, there's a good boy. A cold case but - unofficially, and where it counts - not a closed case. Time passed, as time tends to.

"And then came this whisper, fed back through the Georgian Embassy That someone was suddenly asking questions - on the street, in Tbilisi - abut the siege, About what happened, and who may have survived.

"Just a little whisper. But any whisper at all was significant at this stage. The whisper also reached the ears of Sirius….."

"And that was a whisper he could not ignore," his brother continued. "Not after what had happened to his wife. To Tamora. A puzzle he was never going to let go until he had answers. Closure, as they call it these days. Because he loved her. Pathetic, subjective but understandable, I suppose.

"So you mentioned it to me. Assuming I would solve it for you."

"Not just me."

"No. Elizabeth too. All nonchalant and off hand about it. Both MI5 and MI6 waving a carrot in front of my nose." He leant forward, matched his brother's pose; elbows on the desk, hands steepled before his face Eyes hard and unblinking. Mirror images. "Bait. A lever. Mary."

"Very pedestrian thought processes, brother mine. Two men protecting the honour of their women. The thing that presently calls itself Mary Watson; and Tamora Sologashvili."

"Mary is not my woman, as you so charmingly put it. She is John Watson's wife."

"But also your dark twin, in so many ways. Or why else would you be wasting so much time and effort protecting her?"

"None of your business."

"Your devotion to John Watson may yet be the death of you. Just because he saved your life….."

"More than once. Actually."

"Hmn. Could say the same about you on his behalf. Surely your mutual self sacrifice and posturing cancel each other out?"

"Not as simple as that."

"Perhaps not. But what about his wife? She did kill you. And look at the way you continue to try to protect her. Despite that minor social faux pas."

"She didn't kill me though. And she could have done. A decalibrated bullet and no three shot kill." He pulled a face at the memory. "I've told you before - I understand her motivation. To save herself, to save John. I would have done the same thing in the circumstances."

"And you killed Magnussen to save her. She owes you far more than you owe her."

"A moot point we could discuss endlessly. But I'm bored now. And I have things to do. Find your black pearl. Solve the matter of the siege."

"Good luck with that." Mycroft Holmes looked up to meet the sceptical gaze of his younger brother. Inclined his head. "I do actually mean that when I say it."

"Not always the case."

"Perhaps not. But I have a friendship, unfinished business and an embassy that needs the cloud of failure lifted from it. Plus the deaths of twenty three people whose bereaved families need closure.

"Not every mystery from the past should stay a mystery. It is not always best to let sleeping dogs lie."

"Quite so." Sherlock Holmes leant forward and pulled a notepad on the blotter towards himself across the desk. Picked up his brother's pen.

"That snaggle; about the mission being brought forward. I now know something else that may be vital. A code word."

He wrote. Never quite understood why he wrote the word rather than spoke it. Looked at the one word he had written. Turned the pad, pushed it towards Mycroft so he could see, who read, and frowned.

"Ammo; or omma? Ammo as in ammunition, or omma as in the Korean word for mother?"

"Oh, have you been interfering with foreign elections again?"

"Shut up. So I presume the word really is ammo?"

"It's all I've got."

"Little enough."

"Could you do some digging? As a favour?"

Cold blue eyes met cold grey ones. Dark and sinister, Neither blinking.

"You don't have many favours left."

"Then I'm calling them all in." A long, slow blink. Intent. The words laden with meaning. A sort of finality.

"And if you can find who's after her and neutralise them, what then? You think you can go on saving her forever?"

"Of course." nonchalantly

"Is that sentiment talking?"

"No, it's me." The words were hard and flat and frightening in their emptiness Not long ago such words would have been full of arrogance, ego, superiority. Mycroft bit back his usual sarcasm with a truth that sounded just as hollow.

"Difficult to tell the difference these days."

"Told you. I made a promise. A vow."

Faced with such flatly vehement sincerity Mycroft Holmes squirmed a little in embarrassment, in denial of fear, and covered that response by taking his feet off the desk, and shrugging with feigned indifference.

"All right. I'll see what I can do." He leant forward again and steepled his hands in front of his face. Window or barrier, or perhaps both.

"But remember this, brother mine. Agents like Mary tend not to reach retirement age. They tend to get retired in a pretty permanent sort of way." Stating the obvious Stating what his brother already knew.

Whose reply was bleak and honest and sent a shaft of heat into what Mycroft Holmes liked to think was a cold and barren heart.

"Not on my watch."

o0o0o

 _ **London:**_

"I didn't hear you leave. How long did you sleep?"

John Watson stood in the doorway of the sitting room. Waiting for Sherlock Holmes to turn away from the laptop he was leaning over, to remove the frightening mask of concentration from his face To even notice him standing there.

Showered and shaved, the reassuring aroma of _Eau de Monsieur,_ hair shining, immaculate again and as always, last night's exhaustion and dishevelment erased. A fresh slate grey Sheppard and Neame suit, dove grey shirt, an aura of the engine in hyper drive. No appearance of the grey exhaustion that had characterised him the day before

"No idea. Where's Watson?" The words were automatic, the brain elsewhere.

He was restored to himself. Did not answer either question, did not look round. Knew the baby was not with them without even looking.

"Being snuggled by Mrs Hudson. They are comfy on her sofa watching reruns of _'Time Team.'"_

"So what are you doing here?"

"Not a lot of point putting my tracker into Mary's memory stick when the set-up is on your phone and laptop and not mine So here I am.."

"Quite so. You want to know where she is? Already?"

"Seems reasonable. My missing wife. Also my childcare problem."

"Problem?"

"Yes. But at this moment…I'm asking about Mary."

Sherlock Holmes clicked away from the Tamora Sologashvili file that was demanding all his attention and brought up onto the screen a series of screen shots from CCTV.

A scrawny elderly Jewish woman whose very body language and style spoke of family money and the Bronx, was seated in the cabin of a commercial aircraft. Glossy scarf as turban, big earrings, expensive but slightly outdated shirt and slacks. Talking to the man sitting alongside; to the cabin crew. Becoming ill then being attended to. Being pushed across an airport concourse in a borrowed wheelchair by a flight attendant in uniform.

"Why are you showing me this?" John Watson still peered over his friend's shoulder.

"You see. Now observe."

There was a small silence. And a gasp.

"Oh. Oh, God. That's Mary." Looking, transfixed, at the screen, then recoiling. Looking to his friend for explanation.

"Officially, that person is Lisa Ehmentral, according to her passport and booking details. On a flight from London to Oslo yesterday. A very gobby and opinionated lady, apparently. Of course she was; she wanted to be noticed. Irritated the airline staff, pretended to be ill. A crew member, Judy Lomax, was delegated take her to the heads and assist.

"At which point Miss Lomax was overpowered, sedated, dressed in Mrs Ehmentral's clothes, and finally, once through customs in a semi conscious state, was later found abandoned in the ladies' toilets. Groggy and still in the wheelchair, but otherwise unharmed She even had her uniform and untouched handbag in her lap."

"Why? Why would she do that?"

The glance that he was given was brief, but not without sympathy.

"Mary pulled a flanker, as they say Left us and the UK in one disguise, assumed another disguise - after all, staff are always invisible, especially aircrew - and then became someone else. We know not who.

"A clever girl. Leaving us, leaving Ajay, leaving MI6 as well for all I know - leaving a trail. Then killing that trail. Text book stuff. She wanted us to know what she had done, that she had got away, and how. Then wanted us to know she was still slipping through the net. In full control of the situation. So much for random and the roll of the dice."

"Which means she doesn't know about the memory stick tracker. She left her phone here so it could not be tracked to locate her on her travels. She thinks she is away and clear."

John Watson groaned in frustration and turned away.

"Oh, for….."

"No. Nononono." Sherlock Holmes shook his head. Concentrating now. "Don't get angry , John. She is very clever. She wanted us - wanted everyone - to know she was out of the blocks and on the run.

"A clear statement she was leaving you behind, safe and uninvolved. Removing herself from the common fray. Leaving behind Mary, wife and mother, to return to being what she was. Is. One quarter of AGRA. And doing what she has to do to make her family safe."

"We've got to catch up with her, Sherlock. Stop her, bring her home."

The look he was given was that new look again: soft, compassionate. Not impatient or superior. It made John Watson fearful.

"No." The single word was so very quietly. "I'm sorry, John. But no. If you stop her doing this you will destroy her. Possibly sign her death warrant. At best destroy her love for you."

"What do you know about that?"

"Enough. Just trust me. For Gods sake John….."

"Transfer the trace to my phone." The demand was commanding. But had a wobble in it. They both heard it.

"Not wise, you're too emotional. Too involved. Prone to do something…."

"Stupid? Is that what you were about to say?

"Yes."

"I'm not stupid. I know I'm not, But ever since you came back from the dead….I've felt stupid. Have I been stupid? Look what's happened to me without you. Wife and baby? Me? Detective's little helpmeet? Me? Doctor and soldier? That's me too.

"All this life force around me Yours and hers. Making me feel isolated and inadequate, feel as if I have done something wrong. What have I done wrong, Sherlock? To get left behind like this? Like some bloody amateur?"

"Stop beating yourself up, you idiot. You've done nothing wrong. You've turned into a husband and father. That's all. Growing up, life progression. You are the rock upon which Mary and Watson depend. The caring doctor who soothes and heals. The man who has saved my life time and time again. On whom I depend, dammit."

The voice, the force of the eyes, the body language, was compelling. Any other man might grin and pull his best friend into a hug. Laugh, and bat him lightly on the side of the head. Shrug and laugh the sincerity out and away. None of these approaches were those of Sherlock Holmes.

"She hasn't left to turn her back on you and your life together. She has gone precisely because you and Watson are the most important people in her life; She has left to distract Ajay away from you. To draw his fire. To leave a trail of breadcrumbs he can and will follow. And in the meantime she will close down all his escape routes and possibilities, so eventually he will stand naked, penniless and helpless in front of her. And she will then face him down and neutralise him."

"Oh God."

"God won't help either of you. This must be left to Mary. Trust her, John. This is her playing field. Not yours; not even mine."

A moment of thought. A sharp nod recognising the inevitable.

"Where is she heading next?"

The consulting detective thought for a moment. The vision of a list of place names - uncatalogued, undated - in a list on the memory stick vaguely titled as 'Miscellania.'

"She went from London to Oslo. A cheap short flight, just over two hours. To Torp Airport. " Closed his eyes, visualised that list.

"Norddal," he said with total certainty. Instinct and logic and memory combining. "She's headed to Norddal."

Speaking the words increased certainty. "She will travel by bus from Torp, and then ferry. It's only a little place, but beautiful. Grows strawberries - even the local coat of arms is of strawberries.

"Well chosen. A stranger won't be noticed there; plenty of tourists all year for the mountains and fjords, local food. A famous waterfall, the Seven Sisters. AGRA must have some sort of cache or storehouse in Norddal. Off the beaten track but well placed for Scandinavian or artic missions. Yes. Norddal."

John Watson grinned at him; a fond and frustratingly familiar look that had always appraised and valued the serpentine brain, the judgment, the objectivity, the whole ethos that was Sherlock Holmes. But bare facts conveyed now carried their own reassurance, somehow.

"So Mary is off hunting strawberries? While Ajay hunts her?"

The voice, the expression of faith and trust, was the old John Watson. Sherlock Holmes saw this and showed his appreciation with a characteristic toss of the head his friend had not seen for a long time.

"Now you get it." Warm, mock severe. "But he won't get her. She's too clever."

Yes. Yes she is."

o0o0o

 _ **Norddal:**_

"Watch this. Recognise anyone?"

Grainy monochrome CCTV film.

Mary, in trousers and anorak and huddled against the cold, with a thick woolly hat pulled down over her face. Mary all alone, swinging easily off a fishing boat onto a simple stone quay. The little fishing boat she had travelled on was called the _Flekkete Band -_ the Speckled Band; "perhaps in tribute to the legendary sea serpent supposed to swim the local fjord, " Sherlock Holmes muttered, as he translated.

On screen, Mary picked up an old fashioned canvas backpack, settled it onto one shoulder, and walked away

The surveillance film flickered, shifted, shook on it's bracket; a cold and biting wind keeping the town - wherever it was - quiet and deserted. This setting even more rugged than the one before it, but also by the sea, and close to a watchtower.

Although seen from a distance, the figure in shot was clearly Mary. She walked slowly and ran one hand along the wall until she came to a loose stone just above head height.

"A height no-one ever looks at, so no-one will notice," John Watson commented.

"Now you observe," complimented the man sitting at the laptop.

Behind the stone she pulled from the wall, out came a plastic bag containing papers and slim books.

"Most likely passports, hard to tell at this distance," Sherlock Holmes said, zooming in as far as he was able. "Ah, yes. There are four of them. Passports for AGRA, then."

Mary was seen to take one, tuck it into an inner pocket of her coat. Along with what looked like a wad of paper money. The other three passports she tore into pieces. Dropped the pieces as she walked, as carefully placed confetti: into a drain, a dyke, under rocks, over the sea wall where all the tiny pieces were ripped away by the wind, up into the air like snowflakes, or down into the churning sea.

"A funeral, of sorts."

Sherlock Holmes sounded both serious and sentimental.

Dealing with care logistics has created an odd mood.

o0o0o

 _ **Szczecin, Poland:**_

CCTV again. A girl in motorcycle gear with long brown hair flowing loose under a black helmet. Captured by a security camera on a bleak and featureless industrial estate. Riding past a semi derelict factory named _Rachald Kielbaski_ which had graffiti painted on its walls: and _Solidarnosc -_ the name of the Polish Solidarity trade union and social movement.

"Mary. Travelling under the name Gabrielle Ashdown. American, apparently. DoB April 12 1975. Is that Mary's real birth date?"

"Who knows?" John Watson shrugged his shoulders with apathetic patience. "Who cares? And how do you get hold of all this surveillance film anyway?"

"Hmn? Oh, a combination. Mycroft and his many strange contacts; Craig and his extraordinary hacking abilities. The memory stick locates her; fine surveillance camera work finds her. Works well, don't you think?"

"What is she doing, Sherlock? And what is taking the time?"

"She is leading Ajay away from you and Rosie. Travelling to her destinations, then presenting herself as a stationary target just long enough for Ajay to find where she is and catch up - if he can.

"Eventually he may realise what she is doing. Anticipate where she is going next. And that is when things get dangerous."

o0o0o

. _ **Leichtenstein:**_

"Do people actually go to Liechtenstein? Real people, I mean?"

"Seems like it. Mary does, anyway."

Yet again, they were standing by the sitting room window in 221B, looking down at the laptop. Watching a hippy dippy young woman (sun tan, frizzy yellow hair) in bell bottom denims and jacket with a tie-dye granny shirt and a guitar case on her back, stroll through the main doors of Baizers Heliport. She looked as if she had just time travelledinto Liechtenstein from Woodstock.

Her passport said she was Carol Hastings, a language teacher, heading for Europe. She had appeared, as if from nowhere, on a Greek Island apparently emerging from a mindfulness course. But from the CCTV had appeared to have friends - or contacts -in a harbour front bar.

"A billionaire's tax haven, isn't it? Tiny - a principality? That's all I know about Liechtenstein." John Watson was no longer surprised by anything, anywhere. "But why is she arriving at a heliport?"

His wife was using the whole world as her hunting ground, he realised. It was what it was. And what it was - was mad. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

"Isn't that all anyone know about Liechtenstein? Apart from the fact that it is almost uniquely double landlocked?" Sherlock Holmes answered coolly. Then: "She is at the heliport because Liechenstein is one of the few countries in the word without an airport. We are lucky. Surveillance might have missed her if she had travelled by train."

They stood at the laptop. Now watching film of Mary, in a grey wig gathered into a bun, doing a good impression of a elderly lady who was a brain rather than a being; a blue stocking type in a shapeless grey suit and horn rimmed spectacles. Within the atrium of a banking hall of modernist white marble and rosewood, and talking to some form of banking life who was nodding and writing and relating.

"Marguerite Schenk is in Liechtenstein reorganising her finances; AGRA's finances, I suspect. Probably. Closing down Ajay's financial lifeline. Now, that will annoy him."

"Doesn't she need death certificates? Proof of attorney? Official paperwork stuff?" John Watson asked, puzzled. "So much for everything random, moving on the throw of a dice."

"Hyperbole. Unreliable narrator. Smokescreen." was the dismissive reply. "Mary has been taking her time between venues. Establishing herself and doing whatever she needs to do. She may well have been visiting old contacts, organising false paperwork. She will have done all that sort of thing before, when AGRA was setting up its very efficient world wide web of support and supply.

"And I have no doubt AGRA will have had safeguard and survival protocols in operation, wherever they had finances resting. It makes sense. And it puts the screws down on Ajay a little tighter."

For a moment Sherlock Holmes thought of her financial paperwork in the envelope where her will rested, back in the Watson family home. Hiding her monies in plain sight. Her personal financial buffer, not AGRA's. Something her husband clearly still knew nothing about. And which he, Sherlock Holmes, nosey parker and detective, was not about to reveal to his friend. Not until it became necessary.

 _Dear and trusted friend…..indeed so. Oh, Mary Why didn't you confide in me? Let me help? Let us both help?_

 _But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew his answer;_

 _The cat that walked on it's own. Only there was more than one of those. There always was. And it took one to know one. And there, he thought; there lay the heart of their connection. A connection her husband did not understand yet could not quite bring himself to resent or condemn._

 _Because at the heart of him - whether he realised it or not, John Watson understood that the one real connection with his wife - that of love - however alien and imperfect, was a better connection than none._

 _And was the biggest part of what kept her grounded in her new and very ordinary life. Kept her happily at home. Normally._

But not today. Not now.

The days turned into weeks, and were easing into months. Life had found a new rhythm while she was away. Work and childcare and work and visits back to Baker Street. Weekends with the kind and caring godmothers. And the solace of work and routine.

While Mary put a girdle round the earth in something more than forty minutes. Security cameras and CCTV in banks and shops and street corners captured her progress. On station platforms and airport concourses she was seen and recorded and watched. Between Mycroft's contacts and Craig's genius, Mary remained so near and yet so far away.

They saw through the disguises and ticked the names off a list from the file Sherlock Holmes had copied from one of her own lists.

He also had facial recognition software on public transport hubs within the area Mary appeared to try and spot the face no-one else would know and had never seen thus far: the face of Ajay Moopanar.

The face of the hunter hunting down Mary Watson. Or Mary Morstan. Or was it Johnson?. Or Ro Adams? Nothing yet. Not yet. But he looked and looked and lived in anticipation. For then he would act. But for now he let her run. Safest, for her, for them, not to interfere. Because it was clear she knew what she was doing.

So they let her run. Sherlock and John and Mycroft and Elizabeth. Waited and watched.

Ready to act. Action more than he had taken already. In Whitehall At Vauxhall Cross. In Tblisi. And back in London. Poised on the balls of his feet, always ready to run and to restrain. Whenever Ajay came into sight, he would be there. If and when he came into sight.

Margarita Schenk put her head above the parapet in Liechtenstein. Where an abandoned house, owned in her name but apparently never visited, caught fire one night.

No-one was hurt, the only damage to a pile of clothes in the sitting room, men's and women's but including military gear, piled into the middle of the sitting room and set alight, along with paperwork and various pieces of kit that seemed to include belts and webbing and leatherwork. Paperwork burnt and crumbled into anonymity.

The local police had first thought they had stumbled onto a terrorist's cell. And then decided they hadn't. The file was open for months, but finally closed down through lack of information. The people who might know were not telling. And the others were dead.

o0o0o

 _ **Northern Italy: Il Nord.**_

A tourist known as Barbara Clarke drove through Il Nord in a smart, brand new SUV. In the back of the SUV was a pile of nineteenth century oil paintings and water colours that had come from a flat overlooking the port of Genoa.

On trips to tourist spots ith antique quarters, she sold them all. On behalf of her brothers, she told anyone who asked their history, while offering letters of provenance. Such good forgeries not even art experts questioned them.. Brothers who had apparently owned them for years, but were modernising and streamlining their collections.

With letters of provenance on such desirable artworks, deals were easily and quickly done. Soon they appeared in art gallery windows and antique shops. And found new owners around the world.

Carrots to a donkey. Bait to a hunter.

Eventually the SUV was discovered at the bottom of a mountain ravine. No body, no licence plates. No fingerprints or belongings. Another mystery of the highway that would never be solved.

 _ **Bugrino, Kolguyov Island, Arkhangelsk Province, Russia.**_

A black beret tugged down over her ears to try and keep warm, a woman whose passport identified her as Inge Sternberg walked along a stone pier beside a raging grey sea, an image captured on the dashboard camera of the harbourmaster. She was walking away from the little village of Bugrino on remote Kolguyov Island, off Arkhangel.

An island occupied mainly by oil and gas workers and goatherds, the woman claimed to be a wildlife photographer. Many came to the island to see birds and wildlife, She was seen on the island for several days. Always on th edge of civilisation, always alone.

On the fifth day a pile of female clothes - from underwear down to a military parka and walking boots - was found, a neat anonymous collection, on the northern shore.

Inge Sternberg did not return to her hotel and was never seen again, although all her possessions remained in her room. Clothes, cameras, a handbag. Passport and diary. A paperback book, Jon Ronson's _The Psychopath Test._

When Sherlock Holmes reads this in the police listing of abandoned items, he laughed out loud, but declined to tell Mrs Hudson what he was laughing about when she asked. He realised Mary was speaking to him directly, making a joke for him to appreciate, despite everything.

 _Does she know she is being watched from afar? Or just hoping so?_

As being ignored was not a new behaviour, Martha Hudson continued with the hoovering, unperturbed.

o0o0o

 _ **Tehran:**_

"Is she finally getting bored? Trying to find somewhere dangerous to go?" The frustration in John Watson's voice when he discovered where his wife was then was palpable, despite his best efforts to remain calm and unperturbed.

"No. I think she is trying to offload an AGRA firearms cache. Tehran is a great place for acquiring and distributing such kit. And AGRA will have had equipment stored around the world. Very handy. You can't get small arms through customs these days. And the Middle East has always been a lucrative place for mercenaries."

No CCTV, no video this time. One colour shot, probably taken by a freelance agent. A woman in flowing white robes, white breeches and tan military style knee boots, with a scarf across her face against the scouring wind borne sand, riding a camel towards an oasis fort through the desert She appeared like an amateur dramatics version of Lawrence of Arabia; and to be alone, but from one snapshot, who could tell?

The rider sat erect on the traditional wooden camel pack saddle, and was clearly no beginner. Rifle sized leather saddle bags hung from the D rings. The rider could only be seen from the back. Yet the set of the shoulders showed this was definitely Mary Watson.

"I wish to God she would come home," John Watson said. Not for the first time.

Sherlock Holmes nodded a little to himself before replying. Computed Mary Watson's actions as she travelled the world, finally seeing what had been the true and impressive reach of AGRA in its heyday.

Identities assumed and eradicated. Property destroyed or disposed of. False passports thrown to the wind. Monies, considerable amounts, located and extracted, cash in kind and accounts cashed in. Life - however false - lost to the sea. Ends and closures, one upon the other.

Herding Ajay in front of her by ruthlessly closing down all the AGRA connections and possibilities he might have opened or used himself. To finance himself, to create a new life. Condemning him to her whim, her control.

 _But where had he been until now? Where had he been hiding? Or been hidden? Why had he not used AGRA's treasures and hiding places before now?_

 _She must be coming to the end of her self imposed world trip. If Ajay has any brains, even if he did not follow her anywhere or everywhere - he must know the list is coming to an end; and where it will end as all the other possibilities are ended. That he will make a logical guess as to her final whereabouts, realise where she will be ending her mission, at the last._

 _Where she will go to finally close the door. Which will be the most dangerous destination f all. Where he may follow her. Where he may even be waiting._

 _And assuming she survived that - what would she do next?_

 _Disappear? Return home? Return to London? Return to be a retired black op or to finally be a wife and mother? Or would she find domesticity too dull after all, her greatest fear about herself?_

 _Would she look up old contacts and begun again? Another new life, another new identity? Or would she return to being Mary Watson? To that safety and comfort, to her loving husband and doting child?_

He did not know and could not guess. Did not even know what to wish; which path or process would make John Watson happy, put him at ease and make him smile again?

For John Watson has been a ghost these past weeks. Coping alone, yet with help when he needed it; or even when he didn't. Going to work, sticking to a routine, caring for his child. Lonely and empty of heart or hope or laughter.

For once Sherlock Holmes did not know what to do or how to help. Even though he would never admit such a failure within himself. An inadequacy he had never considered before, through the many times he had insisted humanity and caring was not his area..

Surely it was enough to be doing his best to try to support his friend as he struggled with a life work balance neither was familiar with nor understood?

And yet it now seemed Mary also assumed he would be there for her, too. Putting him into a difficult duality he had not expected.

When she had drugged him and abandoned him in the church crypt before running away, her last words had been to implore him to 'look after them.' John and Rosie And he was trying to do that, he was.

o0o0o

The first postcard had arrived the next day. A tourist snap of aeroplanes on the runway Posted at Heathrow Airport. Name and address in black biro block letters and at first it seemed there was no message at all. Until, held against a strong light, three words in faint pencil.

 _PROOF OF LIFE._

For a moment his brain froze.

So. She was trusting him in preference to her husband. Taking a professional stance of accountability. To him. Proving she was not going into hiding or on the run, but had set out on a mission. And would update her movements personally.

Did she realise she would be tracked, somehow? That eyes would be on her? Or did she not care? Wanted to do her own thing, provide her own proofs?

He had to decide whether or not to tell John Watson. She had always counselled him not to tell John Watson about things that would worry him, things he was powerless to do anything about. Things that would stress and anger him, when he already had enough to cope with.

So Sherlock Holmes decided to keep these anonymous missives from Mary to himself. Until he had to reveal something she might choose to tell him, wanted him to share. And he would know when that was, if not what it was.

So he kept those regular postcards with their constant three word message to himself Filed them away The pattern seemed to be for her to post a card from one destination as she left for another. Which made sense.

Sometimes there would be two postcards in a week. Sometimes nothing for a fortnight. By which time he had started to worry and was scouring airport footage for face recognition software to identify Ajay Moopanar on the move. And when nothing showed, however hard he looked, he did not know whether to be concerned or relieved. Or that even spinning plates at speed, he had missed something vital.

Mycroft's many contacts had failed to trace the man, as had his own homeless network. His own instinct was that the clever youngest member of AGRA was living rough or undercover in a London dormitory town, handy for the city but invisible. Needles could live in haystacks and did so until they stabbed someone.

He would be waiting for the stab and trying to stop it happening. Even taxi driver Davy Gallagher, with his history of living and working in Sri Lanka with a Sri Lankan wife, his knowledge of the language, the culture, and the Sri Lankan community in England, was unable to locate the man.

"He's living as a ghost, Sherlock, Davy Gallagher concluded. "I've put the word out, but no-one's seen him. With his professional skills he can live off grid for weeks. But I'll keep looking…"

One postcard was different. It came from Liechtenstein. A general scene of the capital, Vaduz. On the back, not the usual three words in faint pencil, but a proper message.

 _Always come back. Drive deftly, go happily237 furlongs. And arrive happily home. Best felicitations, Lisette Groder Terrens._

Not what he had expected. The message made no sense, with a signature he did not recognise. But it was code; a code for what? A map reference, a password, a reference number? Another false identity of Mary's?

He was still standing at the bay window, tapping the postcard against his teeth, deep in thought, when his brother arrived.

"What do you want this time?" Not so much a greeting as a continuation of a conversation.

"This came today," Mycroft replied, taking an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. "For you, I think. Correctly addressed to me by location, but using my code name. Interesting, that. Not many people know that name."

"Antartica,"

"Well, of course _you_ know it."

"Mary Watson - Mary Morstan - Ro Adams - would know. Having worked for you under code conditions."

"That wisdom had not escaped me." He paused for effect, twirled the envelope between his fingers and arched the envelope under his younger brother's nose. Who snatched it and opened it in one smooth move.

A small grey key dropped into his palm.

"Safe deposit box," Mycroft Holmes remarked, unsurprised. "LGT Group, then. Largest private banking company in the world. That's what she was doing in Vaduz. Moving money around. I assume to the benefit of John and Rosamund."

"No idea."

"I also assume you have the key number?" There was no reply. "So she entrusts her financial security to you. Interesting."

"Not my decision. Not my call."

"Really? How interesting The degree to which she trusts you. In preference to her husband."

"Not in preference, no. Just in a particular specific."

"Comfortable with that, are we?"

"I cannot be responsible for the idiot judgement of others."

"Be careful, brother mine. Be very careful."

o0o0o

Throughout her travels, he had been doggedly looking for her presence in the tiny countries in Africa where Mary Johnson had lived and worked and learnt a new trade.

Not that he especially expected to find her there, he simply had to check. For if he did find her backtracking so deep into her past life, to the identity and career thought to have been her original one, then that would be a signal, and a clear warning.

That she was eradicating herself as well as AGRA. Deleting her past, totally and irrevocably. No way back, only forward. But forward to what?

Whether that meant she was going to disappear from view totally, invent and become something new, yet again - and never return to John Watson and Rosie - or whether it meant she was burning all her boats and committing to her final, most difficult and humdrum guise of all. Wife and mother. Merely Mary Watson. He could not tell. It worried him.

Worried alone, as ever. Did not share his worries, not even with his brother, who understood them. Not with Elizabeth Smallwood, who was unmoved by them. And certainly not with John Watson; who was worried enough without that additional pressure.

For no-one could do anything about his especial worry. Only Mary. Only Mary could decide and could act. She had warned him, how much she feared her own ruthlessness. And nothing in her decisive and relentless action so far gave any clue. Not even her phantom postcards. They told of proof of life. But they did not say which life, or which identity at the end of the journey..

And so he worried. Worried alone. And any time he had time, he scoured CCTV footage in whatever happened to be Mary's approximate vicinity, at any given time, for any sight of a wiry dark skinned man with eyes like James Moriarty.

o0o0o

Suzette Philippe was very chatty with the customs officer at Morocco's Mohammed V Airport, detailing the excavation project she had just completed at the Phoenician ruins at Tipasa in Algeria. He was polite but uninterested in the chatter of a foreign lady. He preferred football. Which was handy. For she had just gained all her information from an in-flight tourist magazine.

Sherlock Holmes had seen security footage of her arrival in Morocco, a nagging prickle rising at the back of his neck. He was uncomfortable working purely on instinct, yet a small but steady voice in his head, combined with recognising all the cities and countries now crossed off her list, made him think this was going to be her last destination. The dangerous final stop.

And now, three months away from home, her husband was fretting more and more. Becoming more proficient at separating his work from his real life. Spending more time at Baker Street helping with investigations, just as he used to.

Not so much the lure of the old, but avoidance of what could be the new: life alone as a single father and all the responsibilities that would entail.. Sherlock Holmes recognised this even if John Watson did not. Saw the new lines etched on his friends' face, the distant fear behind his eyes.

Worrying she would never return, worrying that their daughter would forget her, worrying that Sherlock Holmes would stop tracking and looking and observing.

But when he walked into Baker Street that afternoon he found the detective sitting at the old G-Plan dining table between the sitting room windows, three separate laptops open and all being watched with fierce concentration.

"Is this what they call binge watching?" he asked. The joke was lost on a man with no time for pop culture.

"Possibly. Don't want to miss anything."

"You never do. Miss anything. Why the special concentration now?"

"Something's coming. Don't know what. But I don't think Mary intends to be away for much longer."

He glanced round swiftly; did not miss the flash of hope, then of guilt, cross his friend's face.

 _Mixed feelings, then. Mixed messages. Love and guilt. Love, as would be expected. Guilt? At missing companionship? Missing sex? Guilt at even thinking of possibilities ahead if Mary did not -could not - return? Bachelor fatherhood, freedom to reorganise, regroup, re-establish?_

 _Oh, John. How deep the frustration, the confusion and indecision Mary has created in you. And all because she is trying to do her best for you and Rosie._

 _Not discussing her plan with me made sense - she knew I would stop her. But not talking it over with you? As cruel as it was brave. As ruthless as it was heartfelt._

He thought back to the conversation they had fought their way through the day Mary had disappeared.

"I don't know what to do."

John Watson held his daughter close to his heart, and looked bleak, and blank and destroyed. Sherlock Holmes felt a strange contraction in his chest that might have been indigestion.

"What do you want to do?"

There was a long silence. The shake of a head, a long exhale.

"Truthfully? I just want to go back in time. To when nothing was this complicated. Before you died…..before I met Mary. When everything seemed simpler, better, clearer. Stupid of me. But I suppose I just want to come home."

"Where's home?"

"Here. Baker Street."

"No chance. And you don't really mean that. You have a better life and a future with your wife and child. Hang onto that." John Watson lifted his head to protest, but was talked over with flat certainty. "With every fibre of your being."

He didn't want to say that returning to Baker Street would be a clear statement of rejection of his present life and future the doctor could not afford to make at this stage of the game. Not just that returning to Baker Street would be dangerous- with all Sherlock Holmes's enemies always swirling, and Ajay Moopanar on the hunt for revenge and prey. But that it would also close the door on a normal married life again forever, the chance of being ordinary. Just being a dad.

For Mary would be mortally wounded to know that her husband had, if even temporarily, rejected their life together. And their future may then never recover. Not when she had put her life on the line to ensure that.

 _Life's a joke, and all things show it….._

 _Sometimes you make the right decision; sometimes you make the decision right….._

 _Life is a matter of choice, and every choice you make, makes you….._

"Some friend you are," John Watson's voice was choked, and he avoided Sherlock Holmes' eyes.

"The best you'll ever have," he said, bracingly flippant. "Come Your child needs a walk in the fresh air. And you need a walk to calm yourself."

o0o0o

But that had been weeks ago. Now there was calm acceptance and compliance with the game being played with new rules as dictated by Mary.

"What's happened?" John Watson asked instinctively, but had to repeat himself to be heard.

"Nothing. Yet. Oh…." a pause to gather his thoughts. "Would you make us both a cup of tea?"

"Don't try and deflect. What have you seen?"

Fingers flew across the keyboard. The slightly blurred images enlarged, were sharpened. But he had not been mistaken. And he did not turn the laptop to show John Watson what he had seen.

"Everything and nothing," he said vaguely as he concentrated on the airport surveillance frames before him. "Got a bit lost in my mind palace. Sorry."

A deep breath, a click of the fingers, a determined nod. The face of a hunter turned away and settled it's sharp and decisive gaze on John Watson.

"We need to move. As discussed earlier. Get Watson cared for. A few days away, no more." An order, spoken briskly. And a wolfish smile. "Get your passport and a bag. We're going to Morocco to find Mary. Right now."

He sent the image on screen that had caught his eye to Mycroft Holmes with an exaggerated gesture of the mouse. A flourish. To convince his friend that he was in control. That such melodramatic gestures were just his normal self. Nothing special, nothing important.

John Watson's gasp of surprise and grin in reply showed his compliance and delight. That, and the fact he did not ask who or what Sherlock Holmes had seen, or where.

And Sherlock Holmes did not tell him. That he had just spotted Ajay Moopanar disembarking from a flight that had left Heathrow five hours before.

Ajay Moopanar. Arriving at Morocco's Mohammed V International Airport. Two days after Mary.

Short, wiry, hunched with purpose. In trendy camouflage gear that looked cool and attractive, but raised no doubts as to it's purpose for anyone suspicious, a backpack on his shoulder. And that black Moriarty expression of intent and death in his eyes.

Sherlock Holmes slammed the laptop shut, and then the other laptops. Fight, flight or fright. Always choose fight. And finality.

The stage is set, the curtain rises. And so it begins, he thought.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's notes:**

Special mention for the continuity and detail of May's travels in this chapter must go to Callie Stewart's Ariane deVere transcriptions of all the _Sherlock_ TV series available on the internet.

Other transcriptions are available, but are mainly script only: these contain scene and action detail, a great deal of humour, and much to think about. Also rich in additional information…which reveals that the boats in the scene where Mary steps ashore on her travels are named, in Norwegian, _The Speckled Band_ and _The Lion's Mane;_ both ACD canon stories. Typically playful attention to detail.

 _Eau de Monsieur_ : an expensive male cologne by Annick Goutal.

Sheppard and Neame: one of the top Savile Row tailors.

Woodstock: Famous 1969 folk rock music festival in Bethel NY.

 _Time Team:_ A long running popular UK TV show about field archaeology

Gobby: UK slang for noisy and opinionated.

 _The Psychopath Test_ by Jon Ronson, is a real book and recommended; 'a journey through the madness industry.' Published by Picador 2011

Vaduz: where else but Vaduz would Mary be when in Liechtenstein but Vaduz? In tribute to Martin and Teresa.


	15. Chapter 15

Meet Me In Samarra

Chapter 15

' _It's been a difficult year, And terrors don't prey on innocent victims. Trust me….'_

 _(Dan Reynolds /Aja Volkman)_

 **London:**

He woke with a jolt, body spasming from being curled into a space too small; John Watson's sofa. An unexpected alien noise had disturbed him The wail of a baby. A sharp sound rousing him from sleep, but not to trigger fight or flight.

Then came the sound of murmured reassurances. John Watson, speaking low, in the bedroom across the hall. Then silence again.

Well, of course. Caring daddy, conditioned baby.

He relaxed back down without relaxing and lay and looked up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Calm. Be calm. Not an unexpected noise, not really. Because he wasn't in Baker Street, but in the Watson's flat. Within which lived a baby. Therefore a noise normal for the space. He just wasn't accustomed.

Breathe. Release the panic. He rolled his wrist to see the luminous hands on his wristwatch and find he had only slept for three hours. Not enough, but it would have to do. Realised he had slept despite himself; realised John Watson must have let him sleep on the sofa. Had simply put a cushion under his head, covered him with a blanket. And he had not even noticed.

Care, was it? So there was still care there, despite everything? An interesting indicator. Was that good? Or was it weakening, debilitating? To be avoided? Avoided at least until whatever was happening….happened. .

He stood then, felt disorientated, felt old. Folded and placed the blanket. Hovered with indecision; not knowing if that was being cared for or being dismissed. Whether he should stay and share breakfast with the little family, or get out of their way.

He decided to get out of their way. So much to do. Best alone. So much he wanted not to have to explain. So much he must keep to himself, for now.

He heard the baby cry out again as he closed the front door softly behind him. Flinched and grimaced. Did not turn back.

o0o0o

 **Norddal** :

Salmon scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast. Orange juice and coffee. Grilled grapefruit. Twice. So predictable.

He plonked his plate of Loch Fyne kipper down between the two matching breakfast settings and drew up a chair.

Early breakfast at the Adventurer's Club, with just two mature elegant ladies dining in the atrium. Who moved their chairs apart without comment to allow him to sit between them.

"You again," the elegant blonde commented without heat.

"She means it's good to see you again," explained the brunette

"Really? When she knows I am only here to ask a favour?"

He looked dispassionately at them both, and they looked back, apparently equally unmoved. Two women old enough to be his mother, but with nothing motherly about either of them.

"A favour? You? Good lord." The brunette put down her cutlery and stared at him.

"Must be important. Fire away, then."

They paused while a waiter brought fresh coffee, an individual pot of Earl Grey tea.

"Recommendations for good child care," he said. More statement than question.

Braced for ironic laughter and scorn, he was taken aback to receive neither.

"Not your problem." Lady Smallwood spoke without even thinking.

Not directly, no. "

"Watson is over protective as a single parent. Allowing himself to be hamstrung by domesticity. Yes?" Maggie Driscoll was leaning towards him.

"Something like that."

"He got himself into this. Too needy of affection. Cutting off his nose to spite his face." Lady Smallwood again.

"Couldn't possibly comment."

"Your amanuensis has a near lethal determination to default to the ordinary. Such narrowness of mind will kill one or other of you yet. You are too loyal."

Maggie Driscoll never usually said such things. She covered her forensic objectivity by stealing a fork full of kipper. He let her.

"'Faithful unto death'" he quoted lightly.

"A vastly over rated stance, if you ask me," Elizabeth Smallwood said acidly.

"She means that in the final analysis neither Watson, nor both Watsons together, are as important as you," Maggie Driscoll translated. "Quite right."

"Thank you for your input. Most helpful." The words were one thing, the tone said something else.

He rose to leave, oddly hurt and somehow vaguely humiliated, breakfast all but untouched.

Three steps from the table, Maggie Driscoll's voice called him back. He paused midstride but did not turn. Would not display his humiliation easily.

"Your words give me an idea. Leave your little logistical problem with me."

He did not reply, just lifted one hand to show he had heard. Kept walking.

o0o0o

He had sat at the dining table that served as a desk and pored over several computer screens until his neck hurt and he was seeing black dots instead of letters. Two days of slow and careful reading of files, assessing, cross referencing, determined not to speed read, not miss anything, not make assumptions. Too much counted on this research.

Learning who Tamora Sologashvili was; from birth certificate to death certificate and everything in between.

Nico had been thorough. Everything about his wife and her life were there in the file he held close in his personal laptop. Touchingly so, if the base sentimentality of the very existence of the file - and it's extent - was recognised and accepted. More a declaration of love than a matter of record.

The extent and the intensity of the file, even the way it was compiled and laid out, had the air of a twenty first century shrine, a technological tribute. A commemoration.

And, as he read, even Sherlock Holmes had to admit Tamora Sologashvili had been an exceptional young woman.

An outstanding scholar through school and university, a happy and well balanced teenager with friends and hobbies, scholarships and trophies. A committed and high achieving student, then a growing career, bolstered and assured by a happy and successful marriage (complete with intimate photographs and love letters that would have made anyone more humane and empathetic than a consulting detective pass over them quickly and blush when doing so)

A life that could be seen as uniquely successful; as woman, wife, scholar and Georgian. A life uniquely charmed until becoming friends with Julia Tregarron as they planned the art and culture exhibition at the British Embassy.

He was concentrating so hard, cross referencing between three computer screens, that he absently ate all the toast his landlady placed at his elbow, drank the tea she kept putting quietly down on the table.

She chivvied him to remember to eat, to shave. To rest. He ignored her, or grumbled at her, his entire intelligence miles away from Baker Street, with a woman and a world far away.

He finally understood Nico Sologashvili's anger and frustration and despair. He even understood the sense of loss. He concentrated and frowned and worked his way relentlessly through a sense of impotence, the weight of the puzzle

While his landlady ignored his bad manners and distraction, tidied the notes in tiny, spidery handwriting, hovered, made tea.

Finally he came to the planning process of the exhibition, the weeks leading up to her death.

Nico had saved and catalogued everything. Emails and diary entries and photographs; even notes, embassy passes, texts. A labour of love.

And slowly, as he read, a pattern began to emerge. Almost too many messages relating to the exhibition. Too many messages from Julia Tregarron. And a pattern within them that began to emerge and then disturb.

' _Running late. Sorry'_

' _Can we put back the meeting an hour? Tied up.'_

' _Diary clash. How about meeting tomorrow morning instead?'_

' _Forgot a conference call booked for later. Reschedule for lunch instead of dinner?'_

And more, increasingly much more, of the same. Julia Tregarron, unusually lax and absent minded as far as the exhibition was concerned. Yet clearly a pet project and one she considered valuable and prestigious.

Business-like and the soul of brevity with everyone else. Accurate and astute. But with Tamora…..something else. Something more human, more humane and fallible, a different side to her character.

Tamora appeared always the scapegoat, the backstop, the easy excuse. Julia Tregarron was a woman with a haughty sense of her own entitlement, her expectation - assumption - Tamora would always comply.

And mainly she did. Kind, understanding Tamora. Except when she didn't.

' _That's fine, Julia.'_

' _No problem, see you later.'_

' _Tomorrow good instead of after noon. You are getting very absent minded. Too much to do?'_

' _Could you put someone else off for a change? I have other work, too!'_

This was not the communication of two women having an affair, despite the gossip. This was one woman taking advantage of the good nature and flexible schedule of another.

He looked at those messages that niggled at his instinct, messages he highlighted and gathered together. So irrelevant they seemed, at first. Insignificant, each little excuse on it's own; so no-one else had picked up the devil in the detail. Just a small thread, that tugged. But an insistent one. A flaw in the warp and weft of a busy life, a thread, when isolated, which grew and became a damning flaw.

A thread he had to pull. And follow to death or glory, just like Theseus in the Minotaur's maze.

He paused then. He had said something very similar to John Watson and Lestrade when seeking the stolen Margaret Thatchers; a reflective remark about pulling threads, how boring life would become without pulling those threads, words spoken just weeks ago. It already seemed years and lifetimes away.

So what had Julia Tregarron been doing to make her time keeping and reliability sloppy, that placed the ambassador elsewhere when expected somewhere else? That so reliably made Tamora Sologashvili both her alibi and the excuse she hid behind?

What was the British ambassador's secret? He needed facts. He needed more information. Triangulation.

o0o0o

 **Szczecin:**

The telephone call was brief and to the point.

"I need material from the archives."

"Which material from which archive?"

"The working diary and the personal diary of Julia Tregarron from six years ago."

"From the time of the siege, in fact?"

"Bravo. Well done."

"You do not have that level of security clearance."

"Oh, please."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Sherlock Holmes waited Then nudged.

"Up to you, of course. If you really want this solved. "

Another long silence. A grudging concession.

"It will take a few days. To locate and send via the diplomatic bag."

"Chop chop, then."

o0o0o

 **Leichenstein:**

John Watson was half way up the stairs heading towards 221B with his daughter in his arms and a plastic carrier bag on his wrist.

On the landing Sherlock Holmes and Mrs Hudson were having some sort of disagreement about food. Mulligatawny soup? Really? He suppressed a laugh.

Which was when the door knocker slammed down. Four knocks, at speed.

"You'd better go back down and get that," Sherlock Holmes said equably. "You're nearest."

Such a humdrum, everyday thing. Yet he remembered it afterwards as the prelude to something life changing.

But he abandoned the bag on the half landing - milk, bread, ham, marmalade, baked beans - and went back.

He opened the door one handed, Rosie on his hip.

As he did so, the thought flashed through his mind that he must look the picture of daddy domesticity: there was porridge in his hair - from Rosie's sticky fingers at breakfast - he had not had time to wash out. Fruit puree stained his tie, and he had only just noticed. The strings of a bib stuck out of his jacket pocket, and he had his arms full of wide awake and grumbling baby.

Unattractive, inelegant, inefficient. Did all single dads feel like this? Harried and unhappy, out of their depth yet desperate to do the best for their children? And did giving the appearance of a struggling single dad amuse or repel?

He opened the door as he had so many times before, and expected a case to be standing on the doorstep. A private client, seeking resolution. Lestrade, or even Donovan, with corny jokes and teasing sympathetic eyes.

It was the sympathy he hated. most. Teetering, as it always was when seen coping alone with his child, a reaction on the edge of pity. How long had Mary been gone now? Or was it best not to think about it, not count the days and weeks and months? He still didn't know the right answer to that.

The last thing he expected to see was a tall elegant young woman in black slacks and sweater, a classic Burberry trench coat. There was an expensive leather haversack on her shoulder. And in one hand she twirled a distinctive pale blue baby's sock with yellow ducks on it.

"Yours, I think," she said, brandishing it under his nose.

And he laughed then as she grinned at him. It transformed her dark, serious face. Crinkled the perfect complexion into laughter lines, the dark eyes into honeyed warmth. The expensive pushchair on the pavement beside her contained a child probably jut a few weeks older than Rosie: but it was always hard to tell such things, even to a doctor and father.

"You were in the supermarket," he said by way of greeting. Recognition of both the woman and the sock. "We bumped into you at the checkout…"

"Or I might have bumped into you!" her voice was low in timbre for a woman, attractive, middle class. "Always hard to tell when you have too many things and not enough hands - and a baby in tow."

She made a gesture towards her own pushchair with one hand. Purported not to notice the porridge or the puree, or even the unshaven state of his face. Kind then, as well as diplomatic.

"I spotted the sock all on it's own. Called out, but you didn't hear me. So I followed you. Like a spy. Hunting Cinderella."

He nodded then, and smiled back. No effort at all. Took the lost sock from her hand and tried to wrangle it back onto a wriggling left foot.

"You'll never manage that one handed," she observed mildly.

"Can but try," he replied. Dogged, distracted, hitching a hip and wishing, not for the first time, he had three hands or magical staff to command.

And was suddenly too aware of the shadows of Sherlock Holmes and Mrs Hudson peering down from the stairs.

"What's going on, John? Who are you're talking to? Not the postman, surely?" His former landlady, protective, as usual.

"No! it's….a guardian angel masquerading as a mum." He met the eyes of the visitor in appreciation before he half turned and called up the stairs. Then turned back to the young woman on the doorstep.

"Where are my manners?" he asked. "Hello and thank you. I'm John Watson, and this is Rosie," he added.

"I am Faithful Debebe Hamilton," she replied. " And the little person asleep, and looking deceptively angelic in his pushchair, is my son Campbell."

"Ethopian," declared a confident baritone voice from above them. "Interesting. And your husband is either Scottish or from Nevis. Which?"

"Nevis," she replied, with a little frown that acknowledged a little puzzle. "But how did you know that?"

A low, dismissive hum came from the stairs in reply.

"He does that. Don't worry about it." John Watson reassured.

"Don't worry," she said "I'm not worried."

She grinned back at him, meaning it. Ducked her head around John and Rosie Watson to watch Sherlock Holmes come slowly down the stairs towards her: head raised, eyes flaring with the blank forensic laser look that meant he was thinking hard and assessing.

Because she had already told them openly all he needed to know.

"Faithful unto death," he quoted thoughtfully.

Their eyes locked over the heads of Rosie and John Watson. Calm recognition, professional accord. The distracted father missed that look as he continued to struggle the errant sock back into place

"Absolutely," she agreed with a tiny nod "But I get bored with that quotation thrown at me all the time."

"With a name like yours…there is another quotation you prefer?"

He reached the bottom stair, hand on the newel post, Mrs Hudson behind him.

In the dimness of the hallway she registered the aristocratic face, the poise, the pale unblinking eyes.

"There are many. Most of them pompous or pious. I prefer Walter Scott; the one about the rusty nail placed near a faithful compass and sway it from the truth. That sounds better, more of a life lesson." And looked at John Watson.

The consulting detective smiled briefly. And returned the nod. Maggie Driscoll would have been proud of them both.

o0o0o

 **Il Nord:**

He did not stop playing as John Watson entered the sitting room. Facing the bay window, ignoring sheet music on it's stand, he registered the distorted reflection of his friend back through the glass.

No briefcase, no baby. No shopping. No current pressures preoccupying him, it seemed.

So he simply played on. It was a long time since he had maintained daily practise, had even handled the Guarneri. But playing it now helped him think. And he needed to think.

Anthea had delivered the diaries. Both tucked inside a cornflakes box with ordinary shopping inside a plastic supermarket carrier bag. Wordlessly she unpacked the two worn books from the cardboard box, replaced them with two similar sized books from her capacious handbag, and turned to leave.

"Can't be too careful," she observed on her way back to the door.

"Could be. You could leave me the chocolate digestives," he remarked. "A goodwill gesture."

"Goodwill? You?" there was the ghost of a well bred smile. "Mr Holmes requires these with his morning coffee. More than my life's worth to go back to the office without them."

She tossed her head, dark curls immaculate, a constant of understated elegance.

"And he wants the diaries returned. When you have finished with them."

"Goes without saying. But thank you any way."

"Oh, you're being polite now? I am honoured."

And she was gone as quickly and carefully as she had come.

Leaving him to sink down at the desk with the two books that may or may not prove vital; provide those little nuggets of information or insight that might be the key to the case.

The desk diary was of maroon leatherette, standard government fare. Entries in uniform black ink, the handwriting of the ambassador and, he deduced, her secretary. Well ordered, neat. An old fashioned habit to back up the embassy computerised calendar.

The personal diary was smaller. A world museums edition, a work of art to begin and inspire every week. Multi coloured ink or biro, pencil and scrawl marked these private pages. Doodles. Words written upside down or within circles and hearts.

He began with the office diary. Cross checking against texts and emails from the Tamora file. To see what corresponded or not. Names and references to recognise and validate, others to investigate. Tedious but necessary.

Both diaries stopped abruptly on the same date. Leaving empty pages more eloquent than words.

So he lifted the latest cup of tea ( tea tray, buttered scone with strawberry jam; late afternoon, then?) and began to read, make notes, check the computer screens.

And the following afternoon, instead of succumbing to demanding sleep he had so far ignored, he stood and eased his cramped muscles, took up the Guarneri, and began to play. The clichéd change as good as a rest.

Mendelssohn and Sibelius and Glass. Bach. He was in the middle of a Baroque chaconne when John Watson arrived.

Lost in the intricacies of ricochet bowing and double stops, high notes and intervals and bitter sweet emotional complexity, he blotted out the world for a few precious moments. Inspiration and intellect within the music, intelligence and imagination lost in Tblisi. Ten more minutes of musical mastery that rebooted his brain and refreshed his synapses.

By the time he lowered his bow John Watson had made tea and was sitting in his old overstuffed Victorian armchair by the hearth.

"Nice music," he said mildly. "Don't think I've heard you play that before."

Quiet words, conversational, unaggressive. An unusual state of affairs these days. Sherlock Holmes did not remark on it, simply appreciated it and allowed his tensed shoulders to drop a little.

"Baroque. Vitali. Chaconne in G Minor. Bit of a mystery piece. Doubts about the provenance, beautiful all the same."

"Yeah? Well, what else would you play? Except something beautiful and mysterious."

He slowly returned the violin to it's case, the bow to it's clip in the lid. Closed it and the music in his head.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand. Is that irony? Sarcasm or something?"

"Does it have to be anything other than a simple remark? A compliment, perhaps?"

"John….."

"Just come and sit down, drink your tea."

So he did. Sitting opposite, warming his tired hands around the warm mug, stretching his legs before him and trying to force himself to relax. Aware of the silent scrutiny from the man opposite.

John Watson looked and observed and saw stubble, untidy hair, a three day old shirt, pale skin and red rimmed eyes Hunched shoulders and a repressed wild look that told it's own tale. Created a rush of some sort of feeling he swallowed down; inappropriate and unwelcome to them both.

"You look tired," he risked instead

"Yes." A rare admission. It nudged the doctor off balance. So he could not help himself but ask:

"Anything to do with Mary?"

The look that rose to meet his eyes was dull, vacant, puzzled.

"Mary?" For a moment it was almost as if he did not even know the name, that high functioning brain in an alternative universe far away from Baker Street. John Watson felt almost ashamed for mentioning the name.

"My wife. Your friend. The woman who ran off and abandoned her husband and child. Remember her, do you?"

He couldn't keep the edge from his voice; knew he was being over sensitive. Felt stretched enough not to care. Not at that moment.

Objective eyes turned his way, then lowered without challenge.

"Don't be ridiculous. Snide doesn't become you." And then, as if the words were hard to produce: "She hasn't abandoned you. She will be back. After she's….done what she has to do."

"Why are you so certain, Sherlock? I'm not certain, and she is supposed to be my wife." He sighed, his brief outburst collapsing into defeat as soon as it had begun. "But then, I suppose you have always known her better than me."

"Stop that. Self pity and does not become you. Nor is it necessary."

The expression was stern, the voice remorseless. John Watson wilted under the truth of it. And admitted it.

"I'm sorry. I am finding all of this….too much. Going on for too long. I can't…cope on my own for much longer."

"You're not on your own."

He sucked back what could become tears as a result of those five plain words, ducked his head and composed his features, gathered his thoughts. Changed tack.

"So where is she now?"

"Il Nord. Northern Italy. Offloading a cache of stolen paintings. Posing as a woman called Barbara Clarke selling off family heirlooms. Closing down another AGRA safe house and funds cache. She's fine."

"Kind of you to tell me." His voice was choked by his ignorance, between anger and emotion.

"I always tell you where she is, what she is doing." Sherlock Holmes spoke with utter seriousness, no criticism or self defence, but also offering no excuses. "I don't want your imagination to run away with you. Or have you believe I am keeping secrets from you. When I'm not."

"I know. I'm sorry. But this is hard. Harder than I expected."

"Why? She knows what she is doing. She is better alone. Keeping you safe was her first concern. Stopping Watson becoming an innocent pawn. Putting the two of you first, whatever you think."

"By not hanging off her gun arm?"

"She made a valid point, John. Not being critical of you. Nothing personal."

"Sherlock….."

"No. I don't want to hear. Keep your emotion to yourself. Don't distract me."

"From what?"

"A case."

Mary?"

"No. Not Mary." It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'not exactly' but he didn't. And reflected he might be finally learning tact in his old age. He braced himself for harsh words, the fear and disillusion his friend was finding hard to control while his wife was way being something other.

But instead the words that reached him from the chair opposite were barely a whisper. And unexpected.

"I say I'm not coping. But look at you. You're fragile. Not sleeping. Glued to the computer. Working too hard. Deducing even when playing the violin. Not sharing things with me. And being so rigid and distant. I haven't seen you like this for a long time."

"You exaggerate." Flatly. Then, in a different tone altogether: "Where is Watson?"

"With her new carer. Well fed and watered. Happy as a little pig in muck. Satisfied?"

The query was genuine. So was the answer.

"Yes. Thank you, John. Some advice. Make time for yourself during this interlude. Find rest. You can't do everything on your own. Watson is safe with Faithful and Jamie. Uniquely so." He paused. Thought better of expressing what he was thinking about the case, about Mary, about the parallels between Mary and Faithful.

"Relax. Believe no harm will come to your child or to you. Or to your wife, for that matter. Trust me."

The conviction in the words and the concern there rendered John Watson briefly speechless.

"I do. I'm sorry. About going on at you."

There was the briefest of pauses.

"Mrs Hudson has left me a beef hotpot. With rice and crusty bread and a bottle of Medoc it should stretch to the two of us."

He hesitated, then continued simply:

"Relax and break bread with me, John. Please."

"You never say please."

"I'm saying it now." .

o0o0o

 **Bugrino:**

If he hadn't been caught by Mrs Hudson on his way out of the front door he would have slipped away unnoticed.

But she delayed him with unimportant chatter about dustbins and baby food and nothing really at all, but that was just long enough to give John Watson and his baby daughter time to round the corner and walk along Baker Street towards them.

Sherlock Holmes spun on his heel and swore under his breath. Pushed the duffle bag on his shoulder round onto his back, to be less visible.

"Good morning, John."

But the bag had been spotted.

"Off somewhere nice?" The query was deceptively mild.

"Just…a case, Should only be away a couple of days."

Oh, right. Where to?"

"Abroad. Nowhere special."

The pause and the quizzical look both took too long..

What do you mean, you're going abroad?"

"You know; big silver bird in sky….."

"You're going to Mary, aren't you? You're up to something, the two of you."

"Jealousy and suspicion, now? I am not going to Mary. The thought never crossed my mind."

"I don't believe you."

Please yourself."

He shrugged and moved to walk away, but the hand that flashed out to grasp his arm stopped him mid stride, wrenched the two men close together. Like combatants.

"Give me the tracker signal. So I know what's going on for myself."

"We have had that discussion. The answer is still no."

"For Christ's sake, Sherlock! I'm not a child! And she's my wife!"

"No. You are being hot headed and angry just now. Emotionally conflicted. I don't blame you, but it renders you neither sensible nor objective. Not as far as Mary is concerned."

"You pious prick."

"Indeed. Which keeps us all alive.."

He could not be colder, more detached.

"Are we in danger? Is she?"

"Possibly. Probably. Depends on the whereabouts of the man carrying the passport and credentials of Eshan Mohindra."

"Who's he?"

"The real Mohindra is a war correspondent, thought held captive in Syria. So how Ajay Moopanar has his credentials, passport and international press accreditation is a mystery."

But even as he spoke he remembered the sneak thief in a Tblisi market - swift and committed - and thought he did know how.

"He doesn't want to kill you. Or Rosie." He did not add 'just Mary.' He didn't have to. John Watson was no fool. "You are quite safe. Even without me here."

"How do you know that?"

Sherlock Holmes remained silent, watched his friend process his thoughts. Realise what he knew.

"This time it isn't about Mycroft and his underlings, is it? If it was Mycroft he would be all over us. Being the British Government." His breath caught.

"Faithful. It must be Faithful, turning up on the doorstep like that. Accidentally on purpose, was it? Being appointed my nursemaid? Well, thanks. But I don't need a bloody nursemaid!"

"No. You don't. Quite right."

"So why are we having this conversation?"

"Because you may not need a nursemaid. But your daughter does. And Faithful will keep you both safe."

He shook off the hand on his arm, walked away, but turned back to add: "You and Rosie. Live with it."

o0o0o

 **Tehran:**

The big old car met him at the airport, the same young woman driving.

"I'm glad you rang," she said. "Glad you came. Nico will be pleased to see you too."

He remembered the last time he had seen Nico Sologashvili - brandy and breath and body contact - and refused to blush.

"I try to solve his mystery. It's just leg work and diligence. Thank you for agreeing to be my translator."

"Any time," she said. "Anything I can do to help. Remember she was my sister-in-lw." She grinned at him, a flash of superiority. "Anyway - Georgian is a difficult language."

But when they got to Gelder's pottery, behind the plot where the hotel housing the old British Embassy used to be, he did not need the translations services of anyone.

For the owner, a youthful Luke Gelder, greeted them in fluent American with a Pittsburg drawl. Stocky and fair, he looked more Anglo Saxon than Georgian, and explained his great-great grandfather had come to Georgia from Middlesex in the early days of British interest in the country, had married a local girl and stayed.

The firm had been successful ever since.

"I was away at university when the siege was on," he explained. "Grandfather was in charge. "

He showed them round the pottery, the processes of production with enthusiasm and pride. Proud of the family firm. And then into the long wooden studio streaming natural light from a wall of windows, with potter's wheels, drying racks, rows of containers for clay and paints.

"This is the heart of the place," Luke explained. "Where all the ideas begin, the designs and new lines."

"Like the Margaret Thatcher busts?"

"Yes, We were diversifying at the time; trying for the nostalgic market. Our designer Dato Geladze created a Cold War collection: Stalin, Khruschev, Gorbachev, Reagan, Thatcher… wonderful modelling.

"Did not catch on, though. Perhaps the styling was too modern, too satirical? The heroic style succeeds best in conservative Georgia. After the siege customers were embarrassed to buy English. Political. Female. Just bad timing, I guess. "

"So how did those Thatcher models reach the market?"

Luke Gelder shrugged apologetically. ""Those six prototypes were put on a shelf and simply forgotten. It happens.

"Last year Dato was cataloguing an old stock room. Found them again . So we put them on the website, just to see what happened….all six sold, to English customers, within days. Terrific stuff. The enduring reputation of the Iron Lady."

"Why are they special?"

"As far as I know - they aren't. But talk to Dato. He was actually making them the day the siege broke. The day renegades swept through the building…."

"What renegades?"

"I don't know for sure. Ask Dato. He was there. He will tell you."

"I need to speak to him."

"It's his day off today. Try The _Golden Lion_ Bar this evening - _Okros Lomi_ on Basris Kucha. He is usually there on a Tuesday night."

o0o0o

The old man looked like an artist. Lean, grey, gaunt. Slim expressive hands, a slow assessment of them both and then an even slower smile.

He excused himself to his friends - five of them, sharing drinks and card games in a corner booth - and joined them at their table.

Elegant and economical in movement, Dato Geladze accepted a glass of local red wine with grace, apologised for 'only a little English. Most enough to get by" and was happy to talk, Nia as interpreter, the conversation three way and unhurried.

The siege at _Akhali Imp'erii Sast Umro,_ The New Empire Hotel, had made work and life difficult locally; too many troops about and, streets blocked. The local people, the workers, were soon bored with it.

They had only realised something had happened when the shooting started. And the shouting.

Dato had put his head down and kept working, taking the plaster busts from their moulds, setting them to dry and getting back to his new design sketches.

The unmistakable ripping rattle of sub machine gun fire had him diving for cover; his burrowing progress halted by the appearance of one man, running inside, dressed in fatigues.

 _"Rogor gamoiq ureboda_?" Nia asked quickly. What did he look like?

She translated for Sherlock Holmes. Who nodded.

Oh, yes!

"Not tall, Wiry. Dark skin, hair. Black pits of eyes. Scared…

Under cover of his workbench, Dato explained he could not see, but had heard the young man clattering around, panting, almost sobbing with fear.

"What did he say? Here did he go?"

"Whatever he said,I did not understand. Then he was taken away."

"Taken away? Who by? Are you sure? The raid on your firm was never recorded. Never part of the official narrative."

The old man shrugged, smiled, indifferent to bureaucracy,

"He says no-one at the pottery wanted any fuss. Kept it quiet," Nia retold.

And suddenly the six year absence of Ajay Moopanar began to make sense.

"More men in fatigues came. Lots of them. They dragged him away…..I never saw him again."

"Was there anyone in charge?"

"Another man. Big. _Ch'k'Cuose_ ," he said. Chunky, she translated, raising an eyebrow.

"No. More big than that. A mountain bear," He sketched broadness with his hands, a beard, a gesture across his mouth.

" _Okros k'bilibi_ ," Nia translated. "Gold teeth."

Would I recognise him from your description?" Sherlock Holmes asked..

A cynical grin, then.

"What do you think?"

. o0o0o

.

He watched her politely walk the elderly potter back to his seat in the corner booth, smile her thanks and farewell with a flirtatious little touch to his face. And he blushed - as she knew he would - as she returned him to his circle of friends.

The flirtatiousness distracted him from the conversation they had just had. Memories of the past, when nothing and everything had happened. The master potter's small key role in a history that affected his country and his city and had happened because of his artistic talent.

Neither visitor told him his prototypes had led to deaths. Neither wanted the old gentleman to carry that responsibility. And Nia's lightness of heart and touch had made those revelatory memories seem nothing more important to him than an old man's musings, the retelling of an old tale.

Her smile died only as she left him and his friends, a little nod across the room towards Sherlock Holmes, as she returned to him, a beautiful brunette in a timeless blue dress, now focussing on him alone.

His public school manners were about to have him rise to greet her return, when a man leant over from another table, when she was still twenty feet away. A hand flashed out and caught her arm, stopped her dead.

A handsome man in his early thirties, dark hair slicked back in the latest style, designer stubble, searching brown eyes.

Sherlock Holmes could not hear their exchange, but saw her posture change, her eyes flare, her head and arm jerk away.

She was surprised to see the man, that was clear. She knew him, but did not welcome his conversation or attention.

Was there something familiar in the face?. The whole exchange lasted less than five seconds, her stride barely broken. But Sherlock Holmes could see how pale she had suddenly become; disturbed by this unexpected meeting, then.

Puzzled, he rose and took half a step forward to meet her, possibly protect her. Reactive, alerted, defensive, even?.

She watched that involuntary movement towards her, and her smile returned. Her shoulders went back, and her walk suddenly became highly female, snaking from her hips. The smile became his alone, and her eyes fixed on his, as if they spoke to him, a secret message only he could be able to read.

"Who was that? What…..?" he began, puzzled, as she halted in front of him, pushed one leg without subtlety into the space between his thighs.

He froze before her as she raised one arm, eyes intent, the smile now tiny, almost secret, and pushed forward one hand with calm deliberation, placed one finger carefully across his lips in the time old gesture for silence. He stopped talking.

The finger moved slowly and sinuously across his cheek, trailed along his jaw. The whole hand curled, finger by deliberate finger, down his throat, across his shoulder. Both hands grasped his forearms as she swayed forward into his personal space.

"What….? Nia…?"

In his peripheral vision he could see people watching them now, watching the beautiful woman focussing on the handsome stranger, the foreigner.

He watched her eyes, concentrating on him alone. Not the other man. Dark eyes with something he could not identify moving in their depths.

Her left hand rested firmly on one bicep, holding him in place. The right hand moved down, skimming lightly from his jacket sleeve, to his shirt cuff, to the skin of his wrist.

She lifted the hand, fingers gentle on the wrist, and turned it. Looked at the pale skin, the deep silver scars there, and he heard her make a little murmur of sound, as if in appreciation.

He wanted to withdraw his wrist from her hand, make her avert her eyes.

But she bent her head and with slow deliberation kissed the scar tissue on the inside of his wrist. It was all he could do not to wrench his hand out of hers. and he could not control the reactive sudden shaking, or the involuntary gasp he gave in response.

She heard the sound. Looked up and glowed deep into his eyes. Spoke, voice low.

"Seduce me, Sherlock Holmes."

o0o0o

 **Morocco:**

Two men stood together in the twilight of the hotel room, both alert and looking out of the window, waiting for the approach of the woman they knew so well, shoulder brushing shoulder in their closeness and stillness.

The lack of light in the room and the half closed shutters disguised their position on watch, and neither moved.

The sounds and smells of humanity, of late night trading in the souk, drifted upwards, and was all that broke the localised silence as they patiently waited.

To John Watson this moment seemed surreal. The thought of seeing his wife again after all these weeks of worry, of being free of their child - just for a little while - and of being here in such exotic surroundings, here with Sherlock Holmes as they had raced from London to Morocco at only a few moment's notice, all felt unreal.

He had dreamt of the end of this nightmare of endurance. Hoped of it for long weeks that had run into months; and yet …..now the time had come to finish this mad mission, everything felt strange and dreamlike. And after the adrenalin rush of the journey, their arrival in Morocco and the sudden pause in action that followed, he was left feeling breathless and becalmed.

Only the body heat of the man standing next to him, the quiet steady inhale and exhale he found he was copying, grounded him to the moment, but also had him prepared for action - whatever action that might be.

"What are we doing here?" he asked quietly.

For a moment he thought Sherlock Holmes had not heard him, for the taller man beside him did not speak, move, nor change his breathing pattern.

"We are here to collect Mary. Bring her home, Safely and in one piece."

The words were softly and patiently spoken, without inflexion.

Yes. I know that. I mean - what I should have said - what are you doing here?"

Another long pause. No change of facial expression in the familiar profile seen against the half light; no glance seeking to read expression or meaning. Just…

"I don't understand."

"I mean…..why are you doing this? Putting yourself into danger? For us? Yet again?"

"Someone needs to. Make sure you both stay safe. Put Mary in a position able to return home. Then your lives can go back to what they were. Well - were becoming."

"What were they becoming?"

"Normal. Conventional. Happy. Whatever fulfilment that gives you. As a man and as a couple. Parents."

John Watson ignored what might have been a slight; and would have been from anyone else.

"But….why?"

"Pointless question. It's what I do, You know that."

The voice remained light and low; as if the subject was of no interest whatsoever.

"Yes. I do. I know that. And I'm not ungrateful. It's just that…"

"Just what?"

"It suddenly struck me, standing here and just waiting….." he swallowed. Wished his friend would turn and look at him. "How much you have done for us. How much you care."

"What makes you think I care?" The words were cool, and slow in forming. "You need looking after - you're an idiot. And so is your wife. Without me, you'd probably have already got yourselves killed. Sometimes it has already been a close run thing."

"Good job you're here, then."

"Apparently so."

They lapsed into silence again.

"What do I say to her? When she gets here, I mean? And how do I say it? To my wife? After all this time?"

"Why ask me? How would I know?" His tongue clicked irritably against his teeth. "'Hello, Mary' might be a start."

The feigned indifference ( _was it feigned?)_ was annoying John Watson.

"Well, thanks for that."

"Emotion Relationships. Intimacy. Not my area."

"So you say. But not very helpful."

"I can only do so much, John….."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I shouldn't push you about it, Or blame you."

"Blame me for what? What are you worried about?"

"Oh, you know. The usual husband and wife stuff. Like: is the woman I married going to be the same person who left me and Rosie all these weeks ago? Or has she reverted to type? Become an assassin again? Who might kill me when she sees me?"

"She's not a praying mantis, John." There was a whisper of a nod. "She's your wife. And rest assured. If she shoots you, I will kill her."

Sherlock Holmes finally turned his head to look at his friend The quiet calm of that look was more terrifying than any anger or passion.

"You'll….you'll what?"

"You heard me. You should be reassured."

"My God, Sherlock. Why would you do that? For me?"

"Because you are my friend. Isn't that what friends do?"

I don't know. Is it?"

"I assume so. I…don't have…much experience…..with friends. Told you before. Just the one."

"You have more friends than me."

"Do I? Really? Or are you confusing 'friends' with people who tolerate me because I am useful to them?"

For a moment something raw and naked crossed the younger man's face.

"Don't think that. Just don't. Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Molly…..I bet you do have more friends than I do!" He tried to make light of the situation, and wondered how everything had suddenly become so fraught.

His fears and his uncertainty, Sherlock Holmes's dogged loyalty and direction.

"No. I don't think so. And it doesn't matter. Relatively speaking, they don't matter."

"You have an ideal view of friendship, of our friendship, that I don't deserve. And I can't live up to," John Watson heard himself admit.

"Nonsense. You saved my life, John. I owe…."

"I shot someone who was going to kill you. I would have done anyone that favour. Anyone worthwhile. That's why I was a soldier."

"But you shot someone for me. And you didn't even know me then. So I owe….."

"Me nothing. Think instead of all the times you have saved me, Sherlock!. Saved Mary. You owe me nothing, mate. Honestly, Sherlock. Compared to what I owe you….."

"Stop it. " Angry now. But under tight control. Words plainly and unemotionally spoken. It was just the speed of the words and the blinking that revealed the agitation.

"No-one had ever done anything like that for me. No-one. It was…life changing, for me. Saving my life. Seeing a value in it. In me. I…I can't….Told you. Not used to friends,,,,"

He choked off his words. Pulled himself erect as he looked down along the alley below.

"Here she comes. Showtime. And off we go….Plan A."

And he was gone, swift and silent as quicksilver.

Leaving John Watson speechless and aghast in his wake.

o0o0o

"Here she comes."

At the top of the narrow and, at this time of day, almost deserted alley leading towards the hotel, a figure walked towards them with confident stride and sense of purpose.

A slight woman with a dark bob, her hair mostly covered with a flowing white scarf, dressed in dark slacks and a loose striped shirt, a bag on her shoulder, she could have easily passed as a local or as a tourist.

As she neared the Hotel Cecil she drew her bag closer to her side, her body language becoming alert and careful.

"Plan A," said the tall man at the window as he slipped silently away.

John Watson watched him go, unable to analyse the increased heartbeat, the sudden breathlessness, the tremble of anticipation. He gasped, and tried to kill the reaction.

This woman was his wife, for goodness' sake! He should not be scared or doubtful or faintly repulsed at coming to the end of this particular road. He should be happy, relieved, emotion: and yet he es none of those thing.

He followed Sherlock Holmes more slowly, watchful, listening, on edge. Clinging to the shadows…..

The reception room in which Sherlock and the boy waiter Karim were playing their double and rehearsed game was typical of Morocco; earth coloured walls, Islamic decoration, lattice doors, stained glass windows with jalousie shutters.

A low table at which they sit opposite each other, as rehearsed, relaxed and cross legged.

From the turn in the stairs John Watson heard the pistol cocked in the dark, imagined her holding the Glock at the ready. As the voices lured her into the trap.

"Not like this, my friend." Karim's voice is clear, confident, authoritative. "You haven't got a chance. Not a chance."

A brief pause without reply. John Watson imagined his wife moving forward from the corridor into the well lit room. Like a moth to a flame, he thought. Unable to resist a challenge, to resist the possibility of danger, And ho to del with it. His mouth went dry.

"I've got you where I want you," the boy' voice continued. "Give in. Give in! I will destroy you. You are completely at my mercy!"

He could be forgiven for overacting; it seemed to be working. John Watson risked peering round the corner of the stairs, and saw his wife poised in the doorway. A strong shadow. Lethal determination in every lineof her body, the way she held the gun.

"Mr Baker," said a confident baritone voice. Despite himself John Watson could not contain a grin at the ludicrous set up. "Well, that completes the set,".

Mary Watson recognised the voice; lowered the Glock slightly and relaxed completely.

"No it does not," Karim's voice was unexpectedly severe now in reply.

"Well, who else am I missing?" Sherlock Holmes asked, unperturbed.

Mary Watson stepped silently into the room to see the occupants properly: a young man in Arab dress facing her, playing cards in his hand. Sherlock Holmes opposite him and to her side, casual in suit trousers and dark blue open neck shirt. He was also holding a hand of cards, face blank in concentration. He gave no appearance of having noticed her.

"Mr Bun," the boy said firmly. "It's not a set without him. How many more times, Mr Sherlock?"

Mary Watson stood, dumbfounded, and watched the impossible man she thought she knew so well glare at the cards of the children's game and hum softly in concentration.

"Maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the concept," he said airily. Then, as she made an uncomfortable movement in his direction at the barb she knew was aimed at her, he continued smoothly and without any particular inflexion:

"Oh, hi Mary."

The boy Karim gave her a brief, superficial glance, but looked back to Sherlock Holmes

"What concept?"

"Happy families."

Finally - finally - he looked up and across at Mary Watson. Took in her appearance and presence at a glance.

"Nice trip?" he asked with nonchalant indifference.

"How the f….?" she began, spluttering, amazed, exasperated.

"Please, Mary. There's a child present."

"How did you get in here?" she asked. That was not the question she had meant to ask; she had meant to ask what he was doing there? How had he arrived in Morocco? How did he know where she would be? Was there danger? Had he spotted Ajay?

But there was a child present; a neutral witness, an innocent. So she asked the simplest question, and sighed instead. Bloody Sherlock Holmes!

"Karim let me in," Sherlock Holmes looked and shared a grin with the boy. Who looked across at her, smiled shyly and offered a little wave in greeting

"Hello," he said,

She nodded to him with the distant politeness of client to servant, dropped her shoulders, pulled the scarf off her head. Allowed a little tiredness to show through.

"Karim, would you be so kind as to fetch us some tea?"

Change of tone. Game over. Politeness and purpose now. Even the boy recognised it.

"Sure," he said briefly, putting the cards down onto the table, standing.

"Thank you."

"Nice to meet you,, Missus," he muttered as he oassed her and left the room.

.

Finally they were alone and together. Mary Watson looked down at the still seated detective. Who did not speak, did not help her. Even after noting her smile.

"I…I…." she began, mouth suddenly dry, "I mean…how did you find me?"

"What?" That disconcerting, distracted little boy frown. Then: "I'm Sherlock Holmes.," as if that explained everything.

"No, really though - how?" She could not decide whether to be angry and exasperated or unsurprised and unmoved. Opted for simple honesty. "Every movement I made was entirely random. Every ne personality just on the roll of the dice."

He looked at her - that forensic laser look that in less than a second told her he did not believe a word she said about her trip; and never had.

"Mary," he began, as if patiently lecturing a wayward child, "No human action is ever really random. An advanced grasp of the mathematics of probability mapped onto a thorough apprehension of human psychology and the known dispositions of any given individual can reduce the number of variables considerably."

She looked at him blankly; lost somewhere deep in his narrative. She assumed he understood what he was saying….

"I myself know of at least fifty eight techniques to refine this seemingly infinite array of randomly generated possibilities down to the smallest number of feasible variables.".

She nodded slowly as if comprehending.

"But they're really difficult," he continued, paused. "So I just….stuck a tracer on the inside of the memory stick"

He snorted with laughter and her face dropped as she realised the simplest of solutions to explain his presence, knowing finally how he had found her; realisation dawning that he had known where she had been all along; knew where she had travelled. And possibly he even knew why.

She knew she should have been angry. Disconcerted. Fearful. But this was Sherlock Holmes she was dealing with. What else should she have expected? She realised how stupid she had been to try to out-think him, to drug him, to flee, to undertake her Quixotic journey around the world.

So had it all been for nothing? No. Her first reaction was not that she would do it all again, but that she should have done this thing long ago. To close down what had been AGRA - all it's characters, all it's connections, all it's memories and links - and step into a new world, all the old milestones and memories left behind.

Where they could no longer hold or harm, keep her heart hostage. She had a new life now. A new world to inhabit. Danger ws still an echo in her mind, but was no longer her purpose in life Just something she could acknowledge and live through and beyond.

Her world turned on it's axis and settled in a new place. And all within seconds.

She sucked in a deep breath, looked up, smiled a proper smile at the man who had out thought her, and who she trusted beyond thought or objectivity or instinct.

"Oh, you bastard!" she exclaimed at him. Watched his face change infinitesimally, his eyes crinkle and twinkle at her. "You bastard!" she repeated.

"I know," he admitted without rancour. "But….your face!"

"The mathematics of probability!" she protested, trying not to laugh, and failing.

"You believed that;" he determined, mock severe.

"Feasible variables?" she repeated back to him.

"Yes," he did a quirky, characteristic little motion of his head. "I started to run out about then."

Still grinning at him, Mary clutched her head in mock frustration.

"In the memory stick!"

Unable to stop himself, John Watson softly entered the room. No laughter on his face, no humour shared.

"Yeah," he said coolly. "That was my idea. I do get them occasionally."

She turned to look at him and her smile slowly dropped.

She would have gone to him. Laughed and charmed and taken him in her arms. Made a joke about how wonderful it was to see him, how glad she was to be back in her real life; finally finished with the role that had been hers in AGRA: and to tell what sh had done to make him understand that AGRA would not come between them or influence who and what they were, what they had, ever again.

But his shoulders were rigid, and his face blank; just an angry hurt glitter behind his eyes that showed he was thinking about her - about anything at all.

"All these weeks you've been away. Months. And what do you do? Run and greet me? Tell me you love me and ask about our beautiful baby girl? About where she is and how she is and if we have missed you?

He stepped into the room, military bearing holding him upright, anger and hurt and jealousy and relief screaming out of him.

"No. None of that. Too busy enjoying a bloody joke with bloody Sherlock! You know no court would ever convict me if I wrung your bloody neck?

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's Notes:**

Diplomatic bag: An accepted diplomatic method of transporting articles, without custom tests or inspection, between countries and embassies. The 'bag' can be as small as a pouch, as large as a shipping container..

Minotaur: Half man, half bull, who lived in a maze, and from Greek mythology

'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you life' (Revelations10:2)

Mulligatawny Soup: Also known as curried soup, based on vegetable, chicken stock, curry powder and sometime mango chutney.

Nevis: A small island in the Caribbean. Usually teamed with St Kitts. American advisor to George Washington (and subject of the hit musical) Alexander Hamilton was born on St Kitts.

'A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass will sway it from the truth and wreck the argosy.' Sir Walter Scott

*Apologies for the delay with this chapter: A huge intervention by the distractions of real life.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

 _Some can gaze and not be sick,_

 _But I could never learn the trick._

 _There's this to say for blood and breath._

 _It gives a man a taste for death._

 _(AE Housman)_

Head down. Eyes closed tight shut. Finger pressed to his temples. To his own temples this time. It didn't feel any better.

He had had fingers pressed to her temples. And to his temples before that. He didn't want to remember either instance although both remained fresh and vivid in his mind. One ending in rejection, one ending in violence. Neither good. He knew that. Neither had been good.

But now, with his fingers pressed to his own temples, he was simply trying to block out the world. Everything he could see and hear. Everything he did not want to see or hear,

It was childish to do this, he knew. Too exposing of his soul. If Mycroft could see him now….he would be mocked as if still a child. As an idiot, as all types of a fool. As an eavesdropper, an interloper, the odd one out, the spare wheel, the voyeur.

He wasn't any of those things, he knew. It was just that,,,,just that….when the conversation had started, the conversation that was really an argument, he had not realised what was happening Not just then. If he had realised, perhaps he could have intervened, have stopped it, kept everything on an even keel. Restrained.

But he had been in his memory palace and deep in his mindscape, intent and internalised. It was only the way the rhythms of their speech faltered then sharpened, the way the tone changed, and the body language he could see in his peripheral vision tightened and suddenly became too taut, too controlled, that alerted him.

So by the time he realised what was happening, it was too late. For he was in the corner of the room furthest from the door and could not pass them to escape. Not without drawing attention to himself. Not without getting involved. And he didn't want to get involved. He never had.

He had been scanning what passed for local CCTV on his laptop, hacking into the local police systems, searching for the man who carried the passport and the identity of a journalist called Eshan Mohindra.

And because of that he had been remiss. The pain and the pressure had begun before he had realised what was happening. John Watson and his wife, together for the first time in months. Back where they belonged, yes? But whatever this was, or what it should be, it was no loving and tearful reunion.

This was a battle without blows. A civilised emotional battle between civilised adults. Not shouting or screaming or scoring points off each other.

This was words widely spaced and quietly spoken, simple words revealing wells of deep hurt and betrayal, of misunderstanding and misery. And by the time he realised that….it was simply too late to remove himself from the room, from their battlefield that was not his.. ..but he had become part of.

So intent they had forgotten he was there. Stilled, in his dark corner. Barely breathing, not moving. And to move, to draw attention to himself now, would be a damaging distraction. Would change the focus of the conversation. And would most probably cast him as the villain of the piece, and what he was. The odd one out. The broken side of the triangle.

So he slowly and quietly brought his hands down from his face, clasped them in front of himself, elbows on knees, tried not to look or listen. Looked with determination at the carpet, to physically separate from the quiet but vehement disagreement, too mentally close to either to intercede, without appearing to take sides.

It was the sort of argument that happened in couples whose long and special history meant the argument - any argument - should never happen. But this one did, had been festering long and slow, borne of limits finally reached. Reached and broached. Voices low, body language controlled, a civilised front but with pain seeping out around the words.

"How could you do it? How could you leave us?"

The words were torn out of John Watson despite himself. He had told Sherlock Holmes he was not going to carp or criticise, that he understood what his wife has done and why she had done it. Understood and admired her courage and commitment, her readiness to sacrifice, her determination to protect.

But suddenly, when seeing his wife again for the first time in months, the impulse was not to sweep her into hugs and loving declarations, but to be assured and grounded beyond a hurt that had gone too deep for stoic silence.

That fear, and loneliness, his sense of emasculation - emotionally and physically crucifying to a doctor, a soldier, a fighter, a saviour - was too much to suppress any longer.

Sherlock Holmes - _witness, referee, penitent, or am I meant to be a mix of all three? Is this my punishment too?_ \- looked up very briefly to see John Watson, almost close enough to touch, sitting on the corner of the low table where just moments earlier he had been playing at playing Happy Families with Karim. A lifetime ago, now.

Mary Watson - or was she still scourge and avenger Mary Morstan? Hard to tell, he thought; for her body was tense and fiercely controlled despite the appearance of being relaxed and open, stood very still and watchful in front of her husband. Minus the dark wig, her blonde hair tousled, damp with sweat from wearing the disguise, her face pale with a different sort of tension to the one that had fuelled her progress around the world, she was now concentrated onto more personal specifics here in this impersonal hotel room of shadows and tension.

"I had to do what I thought was right." Voice so quiet both men could barely hear her. Quiet. But not apologetic.

"That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is the way you went off on your own. Just like that, and without a word. Like Joan of bloody Arc. Calamity Jane. Mary Morstan. Or do I mean Ro Adams? Or whoever you really are? Good question, that. Who in hell are you, woman?"

She shook her head slightly, but made no reply. When an answer, any answer, would have been a gesture of love and trust and sharing of self. Would have soothed his fears, proved her love. But that silence spoke of reserve and isolation and independence, an aloof silence that was a turning point none of them registered at that moment.

"AGRA," John Watson said, finally.

"Yes."

"You said it was your initials." A controlled accusation.

"In a way that was true." Her voice was soft, almost pitying, understanding of his hurt. An understanding that made him more angry, not less.

"In a way?" Her husband shook his head, unable to find words suddenly, and looked away. Sherlock Holmes averted his eyes too; his friend looked as if about to give way to bitter tears.

"So many lies," was all he said finally. Sherlock Holmes caught the edge behind the words; accusing her of something. Of what? Of choosing profession over passion? The kick of murder rather than the quietness of marriage? Of being too much - or not enough?

Or was he accusing himself of something too? A breakdown in love? Of wanting to fill the void she had left behind for all those weeks? Of a new and distancing perspective, perhaps? So had he tried to fill that physical and emotional loneliness? And was that from need, or from disillusion?

Had John Watson been flirting with other women, or been flirted with? Had he looked and been tempted? Had he….Sherlock Holmes closed down that line of thought. That suspicion had risen before, but he had closed his mind to that possibility then. He did that again now.

But he could not help but remember…

o0o0o

Remember how John Watson had stood on the doorstep of 221B, Baker Street, and watched the tall young woman walk away with her friendly smile, with the pushchair containing another baby, a different baby, being wheeled away before her.

They had formally shaken hands in the doorway.

"You are the answer to a prayer," John Watson had said And then he had leant forward and kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh! You charmer!" she had said, surprised by the gesture. Her eyes met those of Sherlock Holmes behind John Watson, seeing his frown, his little head shake. "Don't tell your wife you kissed your new child minder the first time you met her!" she added lightly.

"Oh, she wouldn't mind. She's a grown up," John Watson replied.

The loneliness, the sense of floundering he carried with him without her, was there again. In the smile missing in the sound of his words, in the serious expression. In the hands that lingered too long around hers. In the brittle bravery of the conditional praise.

"I'm looking forward to meeting her," Faithful Debebe Hamilton replied. It sounded honest, sincere.

John Watson did not actually say 'me too,' but the ironic words hung in the air between the three of them all the same.

Sherlock Holmes had broken the habit of a lifetime and had invited the young woman upstairs into the flat. Waited while she drew the pushchair into the hallway and lifted out her baby, a bright eyed, dark skinned boy.

Made tea while his friend and Maggie Driscoll's contact bounced babies on their knees and compared notes over English Breakfast and Mrs Hudson's raisin and lemon scones about raising children, sleepless nights, colic and the price of nappies and nutrition.

And Sherlock Holmes - with nothing to contribute to the conversation - sat quietly and observed. Watched John Watson relax and smile the way he used to, cradle Rosie in his arms without effort, and blossom under the skilful attention of Faithful Debebe Hamilton.

She's good, he thought. Friendly, relaxed, attentive, missing nothing. Made it sound merely sociable to explain she was a nurse, taking a career break to bring up her boy, actively thinking about child minding; a little career on the side that would give her days more focus, provide a little pin money and extra interest, give her firstborn companionship.

Yes, a nurse, she explained. With her husband working at the Royal Free Hospital specialising in hepatology: infectious African diseases was a hospital speciality, and they had met working on the major Ebola outbreak some years previously.

She shot a look at Sherlock Holmes as she said this; wondering, he could tell, if the links between her own situation and that of the Watsons were too obvious. That her arrival on the scene looked too contrived. If Maggie Driscoll's complicity was too pointed to be acceptable. But the man who knew all this was not John Watson. If anything John Watson was far from suspicious, seemed intrigued and reassured by the similarities and the reassurance and lifeline they offered.

So when he asked - sounding curious and kind rather than desperate, unaware how he had been manoeuvred - about whether she would consider taking on a sweet baby girl who wore socks with ducklings on, Faithful Debebe Hamilton made a well timed show of polite indecision before nodding and smiling, and saying that yes she would. And wasn't it a reassuring coincidence for Rosie, that her second home, her home from home, would also have a nurse and a doctor within it?

"Are you really sure?" John Watson had asked then; realising the enormity of what he was asking. Not aware the answer had been made even before she had stolen Rosie Watson's sock in the supermarket queue. But she bolstered his confidence and her own innocent credibility by reaching out and stroking Rosie's cheek.

"But of course!" she answered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "She's a darling. We only live ten minutes away. And having her whenever necessary rather than being tied to routine just adds spice to life. If there's ever a problem with that I'll let you know. Don't worry."

"We can have…a bit of a crazy life," he admitted, almost as if he was having second thoughts.

And that was when she beamed at him. Said almost gaily: "Don't you worry, John. I'll just get my gun and protect her with my life!"

The laughter in her words and the confident body language were for him alone. Words he read as light hearted reassurance Not as total truth, the way Sherlock Holmes saw it, not as if she had actually meant it. But she had looked at Sherlock Holmes as she said the words. Knowing he would understand she meant every word.

It was only after she had gone and Rosie was settled safely between cushions on the leather sofa with a rusk to gnaw on that John Watson looked at his daughter reflectively and said:

"It feels like cheating. Getting someone else to look after Rosie sometimes."

"No. It feels like someone learning the art of delegation. And recognising not even Superman could look after a baby all alone 24/7. And still have time to save the world, of course."

"Sometimes your logic is actually helpful and even reassuring. Did you know that?"

Sherlock Holmes did not say any number of things he might have sneered out in the past in reply to such open sentiment - terse mocking words decrying trust and commitment - but instead risked a small smile that his friend caught and lobbed back to him.

"Don't tell anyone. That would ruin my reputation."

"God forbid!"

And for a moment the old camaraderie was back. Not to be analysed or questioned. Just remembered and relished, he thought. Even down to the twist in the space where the heart should be.

o0o0o

"I'm so sorry."

It was the low, earnest tone of her words that brought him out of his reverie. Lifting his head slightly. Whatever private conversation had gone on between them without him, he was listening again now.

"So many lies," her husband repeated, almost absently. Then seemed to realise what he had said. "I don't just mean you," he clarified, eyes slip sliding away, but voice brisk again.

"What?" she fumbled, not following his train of thought, not understanding his meaning. But he was not going to continue with that line of thought.

"AGRA. So that's Alex, Gabriel, Ajay - and you. You are 'R.'"

She nodded - hardly an admission, nor even a confirmation - as he looked up to meet her eyes properly for the first time.

"Rosamund," he said with sudden startled certainty as a large piece of the jigsaw before him fell into place.

"Rosamund Mary," she corrected mildly. "I always liked Mary."

"Yeah. Me too." For a second they seemed in accord again, husband and wife. But John Watson's smile dropped quickly, and he looked away from the searching look his wife levelled at him; half smiling in apology, yet unblinking,

"Yeah. Me too," he repeated with slow deliberation, standing and walking softly away a pace, breaking eye contact. "I used to," he added; sadly and without heat.

And it was the quietness and finality of that rejection that broke her heart and her reserve.

"I ju…." she began. Failed, started again. "I didn't know what else to do."

"You could have stayed. You could have talked to me, That's what couples are supposed to do. Work thing through." The anger and sense of betrayal threatened to break through god manners and natural reserve.

"Yes of course," His withdrawal hurt her. She agreed with him.. At that moment she would agree to anything if it would bring him back to her side. Shrugged, and nodded. Compliant, An untypical meekness which irked him afresh.

"Mary, I may not be a very good man but I think I'm a bit better than you give me credit for. Most of the time."

"All of the time." She was eager to speak truth, have him listen to her heart. "You're always a good man, John. I've never doubted that. You never judge, you never complain. I don't deserve you. I…." her voice faded away as she felt she had said to much, been to honest, too effusive. Was on the verge of tears, now. "Please try and understand. All I ever wanted to do was keep you and Rosie safe. That's all…."

Despite all his regret he reached out and put one hand resolutely over hers clasped tight together.

"I will keep you safe."

Into their silence came five firm and honest words. But John Watson did not say them. That was Sherlock Holmes, unable to stop himself.

John Watson had missed his chance to reassure. He removed the hand enclosing hers. Withdrew physically and mentally. Sherlock Holmes did not see this, he deduced it with sad regret. And, still without looking up at them, added with supreme logic: "But it has to be in London. It's my city. I know the turf."

Mary Morstan looked over at him briefly, but then Mary Watson returned her gaze towards her husband. Who again looked away as if he could not bear the sight of her. Yet did so with too much slow calm, devoid of emotion.

"Come home and everything will be all right, I promise you." Sherlock Holmes spoke, making another vow of care. Needing to. Having to. Intent on rescue…

Before more speech, or even breath, the unmistakeable telltale red dot of a laser gunsight appeared without warning on the wall behind the Watsons. From where they stood only Sherlock Holmes could see it, and his reaction was instantaneous.

"Get down!" he cried, the urgency of his tone and the speed of his physical reaction galvanising both Watsons into action before the words themselves even registered.

Mary instantly reached for her husband, grasped his shoulder in a fierce grip and hauled him roughly to the ground as Sherlock Holmes grabbed the edge of the low table between them and flipped it over.

It would not stop a bullet, but would still be a blind and a barrier, perhaps a deterrent.

John Watson half rose to his hands and knees as Mary Morstan lunged across the room, thrust her hand into her shoulder bag and produced the handgun she had been carrying when she had first entered the Hotel Cecil.

Several shots shattered their way through the latticed door between room and hallway and echoed around the room as Ajay burst in, rifle raised and ready to fire. Dressed in fatigues, backpack on shoulder, eyes hot and intent.

The woman with the gun fired off three rapid shots - professional; what should have been two body mass stoppers and a final headshot - without hesitation as Ajay, with remarkable reactive speed, ducked back round the corner.

Mary Morstan had dropped into a crouch, facing where Ajay would and should be, pressed tightly into the wall. Taking cover behind, and half hidden by, an antique Ottoman bureau.

Sherlock Holmes was half kneeling between the other side of the bureau and a cupboard, John Watson crouched down with unseeing eyes behind the flipped table.

"Hello again," said the voice from the hallway. Confident now, the man with the gun and the upper hand.

"Ajay?" she ventured into the sudden, ringing silence.

Oh, you remember me. I'm touched." The irony was too obvious, if understandable.

"Look. I thought you were dead," she said. No excuse in her tone, merely a statement of fact.." Believe me I did."

"I've been looking forward to this for longer than you can imagine," he stated, as if she had not spoken.

"I swear to you I thought you were dead," she repeated.. "I thought I was the only one who got out."

 _Keep him talking, classic methodology. Let him calm himself, let his blood cool. Thinking time, assessment….._ Sherlock Holmes waited and listened.

Ajay must have realised the same thing at the same time, because he moved out from his cover, fired a warning single shot of intent at the table which John Watson was braced against. His only possible target, for Sherlock Holmes and Mary Morstan were obscured from his line of sight.

In a better position, with a clear line of sight, Sherlock Holmes silently reached low across the front of the bureau, put out his hand for the handgun which she passed to him without hesitation.

"How did you find us?" The consulting detective asked, settling the gun comfortably in his grip. Distracting the concentration and the murderous intent from her and onto himself.

"By following you, Sherlock Holmes." The words were tinged with self satisfaction, a promise of victory. "I mean, you're clever- you found her - but I found you. So perhaps not so clever. And now here we are, at last."

He looked dangerous in dark fatigues, older and stronger, body taut and intent, eyes glittering black pits. He dropped the pack off his shoulder with a shrug, and there was a dull clatter of metal as the bag hit the floor; unmistakably another firearm of some sort, back up firepower.

Admitting the other man's advantage, Sherlock Holmes looked around him, assessed the danger, lifted the gun and shots out the light. The only concealment he could offer. In the sudden disorientating darkness, Ajay Moopanar chuckled without humour and said: "Touche."

For he had done the very same thing back in England, in a darkened pool.

"Listen." John Watson spoke the voice of reason.: "Whatever you think you know, we can talk about this. We can work it out."

"She thought I was dead," was the firm reply. "I might as well have been." He paused. Then began to talk. "It was just the four of us. Always. Remember?

"Oh, yeah." Agreement, a slight pause, and then the big question: "So why do you want to kill me?"

His answer came indirectly. With years of suffering behind it.

"Do you know how long they kept me prisoner? What they did to me? They tortured me. They tortured Alex to death. I can still hear the sound of his back breaking. But you. You. Where were you?"

"Not with you." The words started firm. But she sucked in a breath then. Could not keep hold of any air of indifference, "That day at the embassy: I escaped."

"Oh yeah."

"I looked for you, for you all. But I lost sight of you, too. So you explain. Where were you?"

"Oh, I got out of the embassy. Just for a while. Long enough to hide my memory stick. I didn't want that to fall into their hands. I was loyal, you see. Loyal to my friends."

"Of course you were!" Her words were vehement, themselves showing loyalty over the years, to the memory of the boy she had known. "What happened? How did they get you? And who were 'they'?"

"They? I dunno. Georgian revolutionaries with Russian supporters, I suppose. Some underground guerilla group. Terrorists, even. Mad. Obsessed. Possessed. Needing power of some sort, if only over prisoners as they played their mental games lurching towards what they thought would be power.

"Under gunfire I got out of the embassy and thought I would be free then, but those maniacs followed me and hunted me down. They wanted a trophy, any trophy. And I would do. I got cornered in a pottery workshop nearby, of all places. I had lost my gun. Outnumbered. And all of them bigger than me. I shouldn't have been any use to them…."

His voice trailed away into memory, but the others did not interrupt him. His retreat into memory gave them time and space and perhaps a little room for manoeuvre.

"But they took me anyway. I came round in some dark underground den. Dank and dirty and so cold. I knew in that instant I was lost. Then they tortured me. Again and again. Not for information. Not any more. Not for anything except fun."

There was a small noise that might have been a sob. A hesitation.

"Do you know what it is like when your worst nightmare endures through daylight and wakefulness? Do you?"

Into a silence that lasted a beat too long Sherlock Holmes breathed a harsh: "Yes. Now get on with your story."

And he did. Without rancour.

"Being sat into a torture chair and tied down. A man with tattoos and a rough country voice, screeching and growling the same questions. Armed with a hammer and pliers A burly man with a sophisticated deep baritone who wielded golden scissors and had a face full of gold teeth that reflected any light in the room. Endless pain, endless questions….questions I had no answers to. But they didn't believe me. They thought I was just being brave and unbreakable. What a joke." He put his head back and laughed. It was not a good sound. "Endless days and nights of solitary boredom and fear, coldness and concrete. On and on.

"And Alex had it worse than me Alex had to be broken. Because, I suppose, he was older, and cleverer and more of a victim to enjoy breaking rather than breaking me.

"You don't want to hear this any more than I want to remember it. But I need to remember where my life and my heart went. Six years, Rosamund Adams. Six years while you ate and slept and lived, walked free and fucked. How nice for you! How very bloody nice!"

And so they listened to him remember all he had endured. John Watson was the first to crack under the weight of memory and imagination. He sank back down to the ground, small, hunched, on hands and knees. Not quite PTSD, but something akin to it, A response that registered with his best friend who had no time to to be distracted by it.

Mary Morstan watched Ajay as he talked, transfixed. But Sherlock Holmes watched John Watson travel back through the years and the memory miles to Afghanistan. Listened to Ajay Moopanar go back in time in Tblisi.

Listened to his words. And remembered something else, something Ajay's words had triggered…

o0o0o

"Seduce me, Sherlock Holmes."

She was smiling at him, so there was humour in her voice, pitched unusually low now, and focussed totally on him. Compelling him to concentrate on her, to do her will But he could see there was something else too: desperation, was it? He looked deep into her eyes, large and beautiful and molasses brown. Saw conflict there, tightness around her mouth.

She rocked her body deeply into his, tall enough to push into him groin to groin. Unmistakable invitation and something more than flirtation. She had tried to get close to him before, and he had repulsed her.

But this was something else. Not flirtatious nor lighthearted. Not her normal behaviour either. Certainly not her normal behaviour in public, even if that public place was a cheap bar with music playing and couples swaying too close together on the tiny dance floor.

He could feel the heat of her body, smell her perfume, her hair; waves of her hair fell onto his hands as he covered hers with his, her smaller hands that looked as if they were resting on his shoulders, but he could feel her fingertips dig into his collar bones with palpable tension.

"Ssshh," he breathed into her skin. "It's OK."

Such human reassurance from him was so unusual she lifted her head to look searchingly into his face for several suspended seconds, then she deliberately shook her hair back and smiled at him; a combination of deep gestures he had thought only radiant lovers shared. He could not tell if they were assumed or instinctive, or if they were really meant for him at all.

"Please….." A sound of entreaty forced itself from her throat, little more than a murmur.

He gave the fingers beneath his a little squeeze of reassurance before lifting his hands away to rake his fingers through her hair with feigned fierceness, draw her head to his with slow deliberation as he stooped to do her bidding, and to kiss her.

When she gasped up into his mouth, surprised at his response, he drew back a little and laughed down into her face. And such was the sweetness of that rare smile, the strength of the kiss and of his personality, she laughed too, despite herself, and clung to him. A girl who never clung to anyone.

"Silly girl," he said. Which made her laugh again, and wind her arms around him, tension replaced by her confidence in him, hands relaxed now, moving and curling sinuously into his shoulders hooking upwards from behind.

"I can trust you," she said. Statement, not question. Words he felt drawn from her despite herself. Unexpected certainty.

"Not necessarily," he answered. Rolled his eyes and lifted an ironic eyebrow. "I wouldn't trust me. But then, I know me too well."

So that this time her throaty laugh was pure and genuine and unforced, catching the attention of the people closest to them. Feeling her relax against him, he turned away a little to put one arm around her waist, draw her close to him and begin to walk her through the maze of congested tables towards the door.

Neither of them glanced towards the table at which she had been delayed, although both were aware of eyes on them from that direction. Dato Geladze, with his friends in their corner booth close to the entrance, gave them a friendly wave, and a pleasant farewell. Nia swayed to one side and placed a kiss on his cheek as they passed, and he gave Sherlock Holmes a firm, brief handshake.

He said something - Sherlock Holmes did not understand the words, but the tone was as humorous and suggestive as his act had been convincing - so he grinned broadly and winked; which made all the men at Dato's table laugh, an easy masculine camaraderie that did the role he was playing no harm at all.

They left the club entwined, and with tacit agreement began to walk back towards Nico's house. In the cool relative quiet of the street he drew her close to his side. Kissed her hair and murmured into the waves:

"Cosier tight up close to me. Safer too, in fact."

She laughed out loud then, misread his meaning of that word 'safer.' Stopped walking. Put her hands to his face and pulled him down into a kiss.

"You are extraordinary!" she exclaimed, her voice lighter, more girlish, than he had ever heard it. Some tension had left her now they were outside the club, but something had disturbed her, something only he could assuage, apparently.

Standing under the halo of yellow light from an elderly lamp post, her hand caressed his cheek, and moving close, she tucked her head trustingly under his chin. Warm and relaxed and yielding in his arms.

 _Trust, gentleness. Softness and invitation. Touch and heat and danger. Dangerous. Vulnerable. Loving. Sex. Emotional pressure, A person, any person, hanging off my gun arm…..Oh. Far too dangerous._

"No, I'm not," he contradicted without heat. "But you've tried to do this to me before."

"Can't blame a girl for trying," she murmured.

"Persistence pays?" he asked, putting his arms around her and carrying her bodily for a few paces.

She laughed down into his face then; arms braced against his, thrilled by the wiry and effortless strength of him, by the heat of his body, the clean tang of his cologne, the smooth feel under her hands of expensive clothing and the promise of lean musculature beneath.

Transfixed by those arresting, unusual features, the unreadable eyes. The fascination of the mystery and intelligence that emanated from the man and the feminine thrill of being so close to him, caressing him at will and taking his mouth with hers.

"Hmmn, I would say so," she said. "Look at you. Handsome, clever, charismatic. Look at me. In your arms."

"Your brother might kill me," he suggested, and she could not tell if he was joking or serious.

"I doubt it. And I don't need Nico to protect me. Not when I have you." Something moved in his face; and she caught the expression, puzzled by it.

"Protection? Who do you need protecting from, Nia?"

"No-one. Ignore me. Just getting carried away." She laughed down at him then, even though the mood was broken, laughed from her position of safety high in his arms, until he gently lowered her back to the ground.

He would ask her that question again, he thought. It was a question she had avoided rather than dismissed; perhaps he had missed something? So he would ask again. When they were safely inside the house. When they could not be observed or overheard.

So he deliberately took her hand in his and they walked quietly and in what seemed like accord back to the ancient timber town house. And on the doorstep, as she reached in her bag for the front door key, he kissed the back of her neck. Pulled her mood back to what it had been before and endured her turning tightly into him and wrapping her free hand around the nape of his neck and into the dark curls there.

He turned her and himself, making the movement look natural, looking out into the darkness across the street and the pavement, across the river gorge. But he could see nothing but shadows, hear nothing but silence. The hairs on the back of his neck still rose in anticipation of danger.

Eventually she opened the heavy ancient door and drew him inside, her lips to his and her arms about his neck again.

Lifting and holding her close, he closed the door firmly shut behind them with his foot and they were surrounded now by the light and warmth and privacy of the hall.

Taking a steadying breath, he put his arms up and onto hers, pushing back gently, drawing himself slowly from her embrace

"You are home now. And safe. And you have had a long stressful day," he said, carefully without inflexion. "Go to bed."

"Don't you mean - 'come to bed?' she asked, eyes dancing.

"No."

He gave a small formal nod that was almost a bow, avoiding her eyes, stepping back from her embrace. But she took two steps and followed him, reaching for his hands even though he tucked them away in his coat pockets.

"Sherlock….."

"Something disturbed you in the club," he declared collectedly. "Frightened you. I was your shelter from the storm of emotion. Your distraction. That's fine. I owed you that."

"Sherlock…"

She sensed how absolute was his withdrawal, his return to cool containment, and was puzzled by it; disappointed and thwarted in her intent.

"Go and put the light on in your bedroom, Nia. The one by your bed."

The authoritative voice from the half landing surprised her and spun her away from Sherlock Holmes' arms.

Nico Sologashvili leant over the banister rail and looked down at them. Quiet, calmly vigilant, more detached than she might have expected.

"Whatever do…?" she began, but the Englishman interrupted her. Turning away to concentrate on her older brother.

"He wants anyone who may be looking to think your bedroom was our destination. He wants to provoke a reaction. "

"Is that true? Is he right?"

She threw Sherlock Holmes a disbelieving look, then one that was almost confused at her brother as he came slowly down the stairs towards them.

"Of course I'm right." The reply brooked no argument, and she watched the two tall, dark handsome men either side of her exchange an unreadable look that excluded her totally.

"You men who think you know so much," she complained at them both with a hint of bitterness. Neither replied. She had not expected them to. "What sort of provocation?" she asked. "And from whom?"

"From the same person who frightened you tonight. Which was not me."

Sherlock Holmes stepped further away from her, his withdrawal complete. As if she was no longer in the building. She could see nothing of the affectionate and almost playful, flirtatious man of moments ago, the man who had called her a silly girl and kissed the back of her neck when she had least expected it.

"No. Not you," she confirmed. "How disappointing of you."

Her light barb was wasted on him, she could tell. Whilst her brother made a dismissive motion of his head in her direction.

"Light," he repeated, still giving an order. Then smiled to soften the effect. "If you please, Nia. And anyway; I want a word with Sherlock. Alone."

She bit back a hard reply, turned and went upstairs without saying anything more; a dignified withdrawal fully aware that now, right now, the two men were totally excluding her.

Neither spoke until they heard the door of her room open and close behind her, leaving them alone in the hall.

"Why get rid of your sister?"

"To talk to you on your own." He paused. Unbent a little. "But it's good to see you again. You are always welcome here. And the same guest room is ready for you."

"I'm not here to stay. In any room."

Curt, even for him. But he was embarrassed to see Sirius again, of his memories from the last time they had met - when Nico's drunken advances had been repulsed by sudden shocking violence of self defence - and also embarrassed by the sexual game playing of Nico's sister.

"Pity. You are always the most stimulating house guest. But no matter. What are you doing back here, Sherlock? Returning the Black Pearl of the Borgias?"

The tone was arch banter, hope hidden behind haughtiness. But the guest did not reply in kind.

"Not yet. Not quite." Words slow and measured.

"Are you joking?" The query was as sharp as it was doubtful. "Are you telling me you have a lead?"

"Possibly." A characteristic quirk of the head. "Probably."

His reply was truth, not reassurance. But he did not expect Nico Sologashvili's response to that.

"You must be joking. I've been trying to find the Black Pearl - and Tamora's killer- for six years. And yet now you just waltz in …."

"I never waltz," was the humourless interruption. "I look. I observe. I am the consulting detective. You resent my role? Resent me for being that? Yet you knew my reputation before I came here. That I will solve this."

"Yes, but…."

"'But' nothing. You doubt me when you should help me." The words were hard, the analysis more so. The Georgian all but flinched. The analysis continued. "I understand your shame in failure. How your wife and this unique artefact are both important to you. Cloud your judgement. I do not have that disadvantage. Neither mean anything to me."

"Do you try to be offensive?"

"Sometimes. If it achieves the right result."

The air between them was suddenly charged with danger. Sirius was very much Nico at that moment, drawn forward by a sort of passion, stepping too close into Sherlock Holmes' personal space. Who was leaning back and away; tall and impassive. But still shorter and slighter and younger than the man he was facing down. Except that Nico Sologashvili refused to be faced down.

"The right result? What's that? The way you left me the last time you were here?"

Dark eyes flashed challenge, visceral, complex.

"I don't know. How did I leave you?"

"You left me unconscious. And with a headache."

"You were celebrating. You drank too much brandy. Got pissed and passed out."

"Is that all?"

"Yes. You were drunk. I left."

Nico Sologashvili hesitated for the first time. Stuttered and put out a hand that hovered over Sherlock Holmes' hand, but did not touch.

"That's….that's not how I remember it."

"Really? How do you remember it?"

"I….I'm not sure. Confused. I thought …I thought I remembered…I did something stupid. I thought - don't laugh …I thought I made a pass at you. Argued with you and kissed you."

"And why would you do that?"

"I was on a high. And drinking. You were being provocative. Got past my defences, I suppose."

"Wishful thinking, Sirius. Sexual frustration. Really? You? Move on, man. Get a new inner life and a new wife. Remember the old cliché? How your wife would want you to live again without her…."

"You are impudent."

"Honest. Not my problem you and your sister are alone, marriages behind you both."

"My wife died. Nia's husband was a fool."

"But Nia is not a fool. Emotions corrupt judgement, however. Which is why I do not engage in them."

His head lifted higher. Intellects clashed behind unreadable eyes. The Georgian's next words could have been sentimental, but were a calculated mis-step.

"Engage now. She is attracted to you. It is a long time since she has been attracted to anyone. Davit's betrayal hurt her deeply."

Sherlock Holmes did not reaact..

"I am not a bandage. Nor a therapist. And certainly not a gigolo. Your assessment of me is strange. You pimp your sister yet expect me to be like Mycroft."

"I do not pimp my sister. And you are not at all like your brother."

"Oh? Should I thank you for that?. Be flattered?"

"But you're not."

"Of course not.. Why you are both still involved in this old mystery?"

"My wife….."

"Yes, yes. Emotional entanglement." He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Boring. But Mycroft? Why is Mycroft involved?"

Sirius looked and calculated. And confessed.

"Because he fears to know - yet has to know - who was responsible for the Tblisi betrayal. Because time has not solved the crime. He fears the answer lies deep in the British establishment. That there is something - someone - rotten at the heart of government. Who betrayed and is still betraying. "

"He did not say…."

"To you? Of course not. He has his pride. He may offer you a challenge. But he will never beg for your help."

"Oh, please!"

Sherlock Holmes whirled away. Exasperated and appalled. Nico Sologashvili watched him, perplexed. Not sure what else to say, how to respond.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. I thought you knew. That he would have told you."

"Of course."

Tone of voice and face were dismissive. The Georgian felt he had betrayed one or other of the Holmes brothers, but not sure which one. Rather than pursue the subject he heard himself say:

"Go to Nia."

"Yes."

And the man who had said he would not stay walked away And climbed the stairs with a slow careful tread.

o0o0o

He knocked softly on her door and opened it in the same action. To see her standing by the window, carefully lifting a corner of velvet curtain with one hand, looking out. Without turning her head she said:

"I don't see anyone out there."

"Doesn't mean there isn't anyone," he replied, treading silently to her side. "Just because he was your husband doesn't mean you have some extra sensory awareness."

"You knew…that the man in the bar was Davit?"

"Educated guess. High level of probability. You are too mature to be upset by just anyone, or by a casual pass from a stranger, however crude."

"That is a compliment?"

She twisted to look up at him. Hoping he was making a personal, human connection with her, relaxing into companionship at the very least. He was, she realised, standing closer to her than she had thought, not looking down at her, but out into the darkness.

"Of sorts."

He did look down at her then, and smiled a little, softening his words.

She sighed, disappointed.

"You are a strange man, Sherlock Holmes. But still a very attractive one.".

He frowned then. That perplexed little frown between the eyes that made him look young and vulnerable..

"I …No. No. I've not come to you…for that. Not…for….what you are thinking of."

She laughed softly, put a hand on his arm and leant into him.

"Oh, Sherlock. You are indeed a strange one. So hard to compliment. So easy to tease."

"Then don't please. Tease. Juvenile behaviour. I don't understand…."

"Were you never young, _chemo dzvirpaso?"_

"I am not your darling," he said firmly.

"You could be."

"I really couldn't."

She smiled sadly at him then, stroked the arm under her hand lightly.

"Look at us both. Damaged goods. I have been unlucky in love. But your pain goes deeper. So who, or what, hurt you?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about. Do not attempt empathy. I need your intelligence."

She knew she should have been offended, rebuffed, but his calmness was contagious.

"That I can give you."

He nodded accord and turned away, took his mobile phone from his pocket.

"I need to send items to your laptop…" he said as she moved to turn on the computer on her dressing table. "To show you."

The inbox on the laptop pinged, and he pulled the machine towards him without permission or apology, began to manipulate the screen with it's larger images.

"Whichever way you look at it," he began, concentrating now, "the siege is a case impossible to close. No answers or conclusions. Too many dead ends. Too many dead people.

"I need to find those answers. Draw conclusions. Close the case. So I began with the most eminent victim, the ambassador herself.

"Intelligent, strong willed, respected more than liked. Driven, ambitious. Was that the woman you knew?"

"Yes. She had a ruthlessness that took time to reveal itself. She used charm, a woman in a man's world. And Georgia is a hard posting for a woman. But she learnt about my country at Oxford through the Wardrop legacy. And flattered my people by speaking our language."

"Did she, indeed?

The glance he gave her was sharply assessing.

"So. She charmed with intent Women as well as men? Charmed Tamora? Charmed you?"

"Looking back….I think so. Looking back….I am not sure her friendship and camaraderie was genuine."

"Interesting Personal ambition before anything?"

"I think so…to insinuate herself on her own terms. For her own ends."

He nodded. Absorbed.

"Anything to say in her favour?"

"She truly believed in the exhibition, our joint art and culture."

"Sure?"

"Yes. We had many conversations with her. She had knowledge, was fascinated by Nico's work with ArtAime; enjoyed many meetings with Tamora. They got on."

"Yes; about those meetings….."

On screen appeared a number of similar images: they looked very ordinary. Sections of pages from diaries, she realised. From two different diaries: a large office diary, two different handwritings, formal entries. The other was a more informal diary: different coloured inks, a single scrawling hand, doodles of boxes and daisies and swirls.

"These are Julia Tregarron's diaries from the year of the siege," he explained, pointing with the cursor. "Her office diary - entries made by herself and her secretary - and her own, personal diary."

"Where did you get them?"

"Embassy archives."

For a moment he grinned, remembering leaning on Hilary Weatherstone, leaning on his brother, to get them.

"No-one had checked them.. Yet the little things are infinitely the most important. So I looked for the little things to tell her story; the devil is always in the detail, Nia."

"Why her diaries? What did you expect to find?"

"Julia," he explained. "Her routine, then breaks in her pattern, the official line. Tamora was happy to curate the exhibition with Julia. But I knew she became irritated the way Julia kept changing appointment times and days, often at the last minute, Tamora thought it was unprofessional, that her good nature as being abused. Because it was."

"Yes. But how did you know that?"

He considered telling her he had broken into her brother's personal laptop while he was unconscious and stolen a copy of the intimate file that was memorial and tribute to his late wife, but immediately dismissed the thought: he could imagine her indignant reaction and had no time for it.

"I am Sherlock Holmes," he deflected archly. Then unbent a little and smiled, applying his own charm. "Sometimes a whisper of gossip that seems unconnected is the key that opens a door," he added. Knowing she had no idea what he was talking about; but would pretend she did. To keep him talking.

"So I checked and cross checked every appointment and detail. Compared entries in both diaries.

"Over their final six months, Julia changed or cancelled seventeen meetings with Tamora. Often at the last minute. That may not seem many. But it averages at almost one a week. Yet she had always been scrupulous before. Utterly reliable."

"Ye. I remember Tamora getting very cross about it. Felt Julia was risking the whole exhibition."

"Really? Did she have any idea why this was happening?"

"She joked Julia behaved as if she had a secret boyfriend."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Not sure. But suspicious."

He nodded, manipulated keys, zoomed into various diary entries.

"See here? This doodle. What does it look like to you?"

She leant into the screen to see, a balancing hand on his shoulder. Felt his warmth, his intelligence.

"A line of 'w's, all looped together. How odd."

"See the word she has written beneath? In Georgian, I assume? What does that mean?"

" _Okri?_ Gold, in English."

"And this? _k'bilebi?"_

"Teeth. Gold teeth. What an extraordinary thing to put in a diary. Julia didn't have gold teeth, or even fillings. Never complained about toothache…"

"Look again at that doodle. A line of repeated letter 'w's? Or….."

"Oh, goodness. A line of…doodles of teeth?"

Several diary pages with the same doodle appeared before her on screen at her prompt..

"Every time Julia changed her appointments with Tamora…see? This doodle appears on the page." He turned to her; face grave, eyes dancing.

" There is no such thing as coincidence. So what did gold teeth mean?"

Something nagged at the edge of his memory…something someone had said in passing…part of a narrative, an almost flippant detail…

"Julia's husband? Where was he? Did you meet him?"

"In England, with their children. A university lecturer in London, I think. The family arrived in Tblisi two days before the exhibition was due to begin. School holidays. Colin. I met him just once. A nice man."

"Hmn." Keys tapped again.

"Julia's personal diary was a pretty history of art one. Entries stopped when she died, of course. But here's an interesting thing: the diary illustration for November amid the blank pages. Recognise it?"

A girl looked out from the screen at them. A simple head and shoulders image before a plain background. A calm face, a knowing look.

"Of course, Dr Nia Ingorkva replied immediately. "A famous oil painting from the Dutch Golden Age. A portrait painting of an unknown girl more correctly known as a _tronie_. It is thought to be a study of Vermeer's daughter, Julia, and was once known as Girl In A Turban.

"But in more recent years, book, film and all, it has become more famous as The Girl With The Pearl Earring. What about it?"

"You see but you do not observe. Look more closely."

"Oh!" She gripped his shoulder. "Julia has coloured in the earring. With black ink; more doodling. Well, there is a theory that earring was actually tin…..but…."

"Exactly. A black pearl. It appears black pearls were very much in Julia Tregarron's mind. I wonder why?"

o0o0o

On the doorstep she took his face in her hands and kissed him.

It was more peaceful and more polite to let her. To rest his hand at her waist as he said goodbye.

"Call me if you remember anything else. However slight or silly it might seem."

"Of course. Stay safe, Englishman. And come back to me?"

He did not reply, abruptly turned away and walked into the darkness of the silent street.

And he did not see or hear the man who came up so silently behind him, only felt the blow that swiped hard across his head and felled him with hard efficiency.

The cobbled pavement was cold beneath his back, and the fall had winded him. Reflex had him roll fast and turn, but his attacker was faster, dropping fiercely down onto his body, deliberately straddling his torso while grabbing one shoulder, pushing him back down.

It was a tall and heavy body; solid and determined. Knees clad in elegant suit trousers clenched remorselessly into his sides, weight used as a weapon to hold him in place and restrict his breathing.

Struggling for air and escape, but powerless to shift his attacker, Sherlock Holmes fought to get some purchase for his feet, create leverage and buck the man sitting on him off and away.

The other man simply laughed. A face he had seen earlier.

A man who leant forward and crouched low, grabbing a handful of dark curls and pulling, intent on causing pain. Face dangerously too close, so Sherlock Holmes could taste his breath: local wine and whisky mingled.

"Do you think my wife felt crushed like this while you fucked her?" said the face too close to his. Georgian; cultured, accented but effortless English. "Hurt and pressured and humiliated? Enjoy doing that, did you? Because I did."

The face was the face of the man in the club. The man at the table who had caught Nia's hand. A face darkly handsome and somehow smug; entitled. Davit Ingorkva.

"Don't do it again."

"She is not yours to dictate."

Hand still firmly clenched in Sherlock Holmes' hair, he frowned, leant to one side…..so a bearlike form behind him came into view. The man who had delivered the original blow.

A fist rose; a huge fist with manicured nails and chipped knuckles; not the first exchange of blows by him that evening then, Sherlock Holmes could not help registering with something like resignation.

A square face with pale blue eyes and a large wide lipped mouth was wreathed in wild red hair and beard, all topped with an incongruous black beret. An amused intent gaze met his; enjoying the power of focussed cruelty.

He would know that face if he saw it again, Sherlock Holmes thought.

As the powerful hand headed at full speed and power towards his jaw, Sherlock Holmes saw his attacker smile. Saw the glint of streetlights on gold teeth.

Apart from the fist, that was the last thing he saw for some time.

o0o0o

Oh!

A jolt back to reality from memory. Yes. Still listening. Ajay still talking.

"Oh, they thought I'd give in. Die. But I didn't. I lived and eventually they sort of forgot about me. Left me rotting in a cell. Six years they kept me there, until finally I had a chance to escape. I had vowed I would make them pay. I could not kill them, but I could listen and learn, find a lever. For later, for revenge

"You know, all the time I was there I just kept picking up things. Little whispers, Laughter, gossip, how the clever gents and the politicians had been betrayed by the siege. "

"Brought down by you. Or will be. Eventually."

"Me?"

Light from a passing train sudden illuminated the room in a flash of clarity.

Ajay automatically looked to his target; Mary, knowing the target was herself, instinctively broke cover, reaching for the gun Sherlock Holmes had handed back to her.

John Watson the spell of his memory broken, scrambled for the hand gun in the bag Ajay had dropped earlier.

.As Ajay came forward and rounded the corner Mary was already there to meet him.

A Mexican stand off; the two AGRA colleagues, professional killers, inches apart, guns levelled at each other's head. Neither flinching or giving ground. Impasse.

John Watson dropped to the tile floor, the alien gun braced against his arm, aiming at Ajay's head. The implacable soldier restored. Ajay raised his head and sighed at the sight of them in their obscene eternal triangle.

"You know I'll kill you too. You know I will, Ajay." Mary's voice was slightly higher pitched than normal, but the resolve within her was without doubt.

"What? You think I care if I die?"

He lifted one hand from his gun and stepped forward a pace. The only person in the room now without a gun in hand rose onto his toes, ready to pounce.

"I've dreamed of killing you every night for six years," the youngest member of AGRA told his elder.

Slowly he leant forward, and carefully put his forehead onto the cool maw of Mary Morstan's pistol. Daring her to pull the trigger.

"Of squeezing the life out of your treacherous lying throat….." he continued.

"I swear to you, Ajay…"

John Watson rose a little; teeth bared…then sank back. Ready to kill and protect his wife if necessary. Yet excluded from the battle of wills going on before him.

Sherlock Holmes interrupted that battle; very self possessed., voice unusually gentle and quiet, speaking without command or pressure. Knowing what he needed to hear, what Ajay needed to say.

"What did you hear, Ajay? When you were a prisoner, what exactly did you hear?"

"What did I hear?" He hesitated Remembering. Miles and many months from the room in which he now stood.

"Ammo. Every day as they tore into me. Ammo. Ammo." His voice began to tremble. "Ammo. Ammo!"

Lost in his own head. In danger of losing control, His voice changed.

"We were betrayed! AGRA. We were betrayed!"

"And they said it was her? Mary? They actually said it was Mary who betrayed you?" Sherlock Holmes's voice remained soft, very gently probing.

Ajay took half a step closer, all his concentration back on Mary.

"You betrayed us!" Accusation, not answer.

She stood very still, unable to move before his vehemence, not daring to interrupt.

"They said her name?" Sherlock Holmes persisted.

"Yeah. They said it was the Englishwoman."

"But that doesn't…"

Without noise or any word of warning, a uniformed Moroccan policeman stepped forward into the room, and without hesitation shot Ajay twice in the back.

The boy fell silently forward, eyes shocked wide with surprise and pain, into and through Mary Morstan's arms, spread wide to avoid triggering either his pistol or hers, his expression looking beyond her, fixed in life and then death onto Sherlock Holmes as he fell. Instantly boneless, instantly dead.

"No! No!"

Mary Morstan became Mary Watson, pulled back her gun arm as Ajay Moopanar's head hit her feet and she screamed. And screamed again.

Her gun joined his, both clattering onto the floor as both weapons dropped from spasming hands. In horror, she bent down to him, her husband joining her; nurse and doctor assuming their natural instinctive roles, reactive to giving aid despite everything.

The policeman remained poised, silent and concentrated, his weapon still directed down at his victim.

"No need for that inspector. The boy is dead."

Sherlock Holmes stated the obvious as the servant Karim entered with the ordered tea tray -and promptly dropped it in horror, shattering cups and spraying the floor with hot green tea. Onto the floor, onto feet, onto the body.

"You have some explaining to do inspector. That young man was a friend of ours."

He did not waste concentration on the policeman, but stood and looked down at Mary, now cradling Ajay's head and sobbing. At John Watson, looking on with horror; his right leg giving out from under him as he clutched the arm of the sofa with his right hand for support, his left hand - holding another gun, Ajay's other gun - trembling at his side.

A part of him, the part of him that was not feeling angry, and cheated, and thwarted, felt he should offer comfort. But he could not decide which of the two people he knew so well might need comfort the most; and which one would resent him most for comforting the other. So he stood tall and silent, and said nothing.

But that was fine. No-one would ever expect him to empathise, to comfort, to regret or to avenge.

So he drew himself up to his full height and stepped away from the carnage at his feet.

Thought about ammo. And an Englishwoman. And gold teeth.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

Sorry to have taken so long to bring this chapter to you. Real life interfered on a major scale. Selling and buying houses and moving home. A month without internet through no fault of my own. A road traffic accident, a quirky new house to be woken from slumber - broken central heating to sort, and then two catastrophic storms which devastated the garden fences and shed at my new house that had to be dealt with asap.

And now coronavirus, to keep me in social distancing and writing instead. I left Sherlock bleeding on a Tblisi street for far too long, and need to apologise, to him and to you.

But we're back on track now. And Chapter 17 will be with you shortly!

Stay warm, stay safe, stay well!


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

 _In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act_

 _(George Orwell)_

Inspector of Police Ahmed El Idrissi regretted nothing. He put one hand on a hip, arrogantly held his gun so very casually in the other, and raised his head to defy the anger and the criticism of Sherlock Holmes.

"I do not understand why you are getting so upset, Sir," he said equably and with complete confidence.

"I follow the man because I know him to be a villain and a murderer. I enter the building and find him not only about to shoot the lady, but clearly also to then shoot yourself and your friend. So I shoot him first. Remove the danger. Public safety and the rule of law. That is my job, yes?"

And into the grim silence he added for good measure:

"Justice done, order restored. So what, please, is your problem with that?"

"Well. If you must put it like that….."

He aimed for indifference, nonchalance, swallowed his anger and disappointment, and recognised the need to be pragmatic and accept what could not be changed.

The policeman's view was the totally objective perspective of the outsider and the professional. So he shrugged himself into acceptance, capitulation. Closed his mind to what he could have learnt if Ajay Moopanar had not died. But concentrated instead on what could have happened afterwards if he had lived. How complicated things could have become Business or bloodbath or bathos. All three?

That without El Idrissii's intervention at some point there would have been at least one body on the floor…and the thought that Mary could have died after all - that they could have all died because of Ajay's anger and warped perspective - was sobering..

So perhaps Ajay's judicial murder was for the best result after all. Because when the local police force discovered their mistake the incident and the body would be buried with minimum fuss and maximum secrecy, then quietly forgotten about.

And what had been Ajay and the angry remnant of AGRA would simply melt into air, Into thin air.

Perhaps it simplified matters as far as real life and the real people he left behind him were concerned. And that the shadow over Tblisi would have to be lifted from another direction. In a less personal way A way that would not make the little family, his little family, suffer any more, and so unnecessarily.

He lifted his head, a brisk nod to El Idrissi signalled a silent acceptance of the viewpoint, recognition of the other man's dilemma, his split second decision to take action, what could not be changed as the result.

The policeman relaxed a little; he had recognised the man before him as a leader, a professional and now bowed briefly n acknowledgement, and finally holstered his weapon.

With a sigh, Sherlock Holmes looked around the room, the shadowy alien place where Fate had caught up with them all. And Death had unexpectedly visited a place that was not Samarra.

Mary remained on her knees. As if in prayer, as if in obeisance, eyes fixed on the dead man as the scene of crime technicians, as at death scenes all around the world, rolled and folded the corpse, impersonally but not ungently, into a standard blue body bag.

She slowly, as if alone in the room, put her clenched hands to her temple and bowed her head.

 _So. A pranama, he observed, a sign of respect if not devotion to Ajay, expressed in his faith. A sign of their joint past, her continuing commitment to the young man, even though he had wanted to kill her. Namaskara, he thought. So she understood the boy even now; his faith, his mindset. And still mourned his death._

He should have felt he was intruding on a highly personal moment of grief. But he was not like other people, and although the human part of him recoiled at some deep level, the larger part of him watched and assessed with his usual detachment.

So he watched her flinch at the sound of the plastic zipper running forward as the body was covered and rendered invisible and anonymous. But he avoided her eyes at such a private moment of farewell. He neither wanted to see her grief nor connect with it.

Her grief was only too evident, but she did not speak or protest. Reached out a hand back and to the side, but her husband, still and silent at her side, did not take it.

Instead John Watson looked off impassively into the middle distance. As if what had been Ajay Moopanar was already no longer there, or that he himself was in a different life, or preferably and more practically, in a different room.

For a moment his eyes met those of Sherlock Holmes, and there was a deliberate and unreadable blankness there that was untypical of the care giving side of the doctor..

"The police were alerted when Eshan Mohindra arrived at Mohammed V International Airport. His name has long been on our Most Wanted list," the policeman continued. As if the shooting of a man was normal or even commonplace. Which perhaps it was, for him, in Morocco.

"For what?"

"Murder, of course. You do not know? I tell you. Mohindra worked freelance for all the Asian and Arabic news agencies, but this was a cover. He was long suspected of inciting the death and violence he reported."

"An _agent provocateur?"_

"Just so. Also that he committed murder himself. He was wanted for murder by Interpol, and not just here in Morocco. Murder of a young politician in this very city, and of a policeman. Five years ago. He fled the country. We have been searching for him ever since. Our memories are long. Especially as he murdered one of our own."

"But this man was not Mohindra."

"You say so. But how do you know for sure? This man travelled on Mohindra's passport, the photographs tallied. Facial recognition spotted him at the airport. This was Mohindra, Sir. Trust me. I have seen Mohindra before, with my own eyes, when he killed my people. I would never forget him."

"This man was called Ajay Moopanar," Sherlock Holms pointed out. "And was two inches shorter than the passport says."

"How do you know what was on the passport?" The policeman watched something move in the face of the tall gaunt man before him. Not knowing about a rainswept churchyard, a file on a laptop, a drug, a betrayal and a collapse." And if the passport he lodged at his hotel was not really his, then how did he get it?" he persisted.

"I believe he stole it. And the fact they looked alike gave him the idea to use that particular stolen passport to travel on."

His mind jolted him into a sudden memory of a market café in Tblisi; of a wiry young thief who attacked him and stole his bag. And who must have stolen other things, and other bags, from other people, to fund survival and search after escape from his captors.

Stolen a bag from Eshan Mohindra, then? Who had been quietly passing through Tblisi by the old Silk Road when life got too hot for him in one of the world's many hotspots?

"This man was Mohindra," El Idrissi insisted,. "Who has ever heard of Ajay Moopanar? What was he?"

"A good man and an honourable one. Brave. A soldier." Mary Morstan, who had temporarily forgotten she was Mary Watson, spoke suddenly with a fervent quietness that made Sherlock Holmes wince, but touched Inspector El Idrissi not at all.

"So; still a killer, then And about to kill again. " He shrugged. "Kill or be killed. You were lucky I was here. It was Kismet."

He bowed formally to the three English people before any of them could reply and contradict, stepped backwards, turned on his heel and was gone, following the men with the body bag from the room.

The silence he left behind was stifling.

"We need tea," John Watson finally declared into the void. "I'll go find Karim, organise it."

And stepped away. Left the room.

Mary Watson got slowly to her feet, avoiding Sherlock Holmes' eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mary," he heard himself say.

"Why?" she shot him a look, angry and defensive. "You didn't know him. He meant nothing to you."

"No. But his death was untimely. And we needed to learn more from him. To get to the bottom of all this. His death is a setback."

"Setback."

She echoed the word. Then her face crumpled. "All the effort I have put in over the last three months, Sherlock. The danger. The fear. The loneliness. And then to nearly die when I thought it was all over, and I had seen the last of AGRA…with Ajay, suddenly in front of me."

Her voice trailed away. He looked at her, refusing to be touched by her feelings..

"Emotion now, Mary? After spending so long crossing the world and ruthlessly removing his lifelines? Your lifelines. Drawing him to you. You succeeded in your mission. You have nothing to regret."

He did not say the other thing Ajay's sudden appearance had proved. He bit the words back. She would realise for herself soon enough…

"Apart from abandoning John and Rosie. " She took a step towards him and lifted her head. "And drugging you…."

"Not the first time you have damaged me," he dismissed. "So what?""

"…I ran off and left my husband and child without a word. Without news or hope. How can they ever forgive me, Sherlock?"

" You ask me? When I did the very same thing to the people I…to the people closest to me? Well. Rosie is too young to know or to care. And she is being well looked after. Safe and well, as you wanted.

"John is upset because he could do nothing to help you. But then, you did not give him the chance to try. You remain your own person, and a professional, first and last. Not just his wife, not allowing yourself to be sheltered by his care."

"Will he ever forgive me?"

"For not letting him help you? Or for running away to protect him? That's up to you both. How you respond to him, to each other, from here."

She looked up at him, blank and unblinking.

"I don't even know why I'm asking you."

"Because you have no-one else. Because you have realised John thinks that you being you means he is inferior; lacking as husband, father, provider. That you are more dangerous than him. That he cannot change the heart and core of you, and you have refused to change yours for him. You are still….what you were. The best at what you were."

"Oh, is that a compliment, now?" There was a flicker of pragmatic humour returning, despite herself. He saw it flash across her eyes. "You must be slipping."

"Hmn," he responded. "I rather think I must be getting old."

He dipped his head so she did not see the sudden pain and exhaustion strike him. Relieved she did not notice.

Because she laughed then, and leant in on her tiptoes to put a light kiss on his cheek.

"I'm exhausted. It has been a difficult few months."

"So what have you learnt?"

She thought for a long moment, taking the question seriously, and then her voice was low and honest.

"That I could finally close doors of my past life without regret. Accept that was needed. That it was beyond time to do that. But I also learnt…that I could still do it. Be the professional, That as much as I have changed, there are parts of me that…stay the same. That I will always react and respond."

"You always knew that. And so did I. You shot me in cold blood, remember? " He paused, but could not refrain from telling truth.

"But John saw that in you for himself tonight. That you were prepared to kill Ajay, even though he was your friend and you had loved him like a brother."

Her mouth shaped the word 'yes' but no sound came.

"When we stood on that thin red line…between life and death when facing Ajay…it was me you turned to. Me you handed your gun without a second thought. Me. Not John.

"That was….pure instinct."

"I know. Hadn't meant to point that out. There's always something….."

"No, you're right. A debrief is no good if it only contains what you want to hear. But that moment…made me understand something." She paused, eyes dark and wide, a hand out towards him which he noted but ignored. "How much I would do - will do - for those I love. How much I have missed you while I was away. All of you. All three of you. And that….." she hesitated. "I would even kill my best friend to protect you all."

"You killed me."

"I don't mean you. I mean Ajay. He was like a younger brother, someone I trusted with my life. And yet, with my pistol to his head, I knew I could just shoot him if I had to. No regret. But would make sure, that if he killed me, I would kill him too."

She looked up into his face, deep into his eyes, and this time he did not look away.

"I am still a killing machine, Sherlock. Just as I feared. Despite being a wife and mother, I am still a killer. " She looked away. Three words came as if dragged out of her.

"I hate myself."

"That is not logical."

He resisted the temptation to reach out. To shake or console her.

"Can't help that."

"You feared being more killing machine than mother? That was why you asked me to kill you if necessary?"

"What good am I to Rosie? Or John? Being me? Drawing them into danger by being me. How much will John hate me for it?"

"Why should he hate you? He might be proud of you."

She huffed out a humorless laugh.

"Not much sign of that."

"He's hurting. Uncertain. Feels helpless."

"So you're a marriage counsellor now?" The amused tone was forced. And he had no reply that could help. She shrugged. Finally, visibly, drained.

"I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted."

He caught her arm as she passed him. Stopped her, swung her close.

"John's room. Not your room, where you have been the past two days."

She heard the authority in his voice, the determination in his face.

"I….he….might not want me there."

"It doesn't matter. You need to be there."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. He is balanced on the edge, Mary. This is your chance to re-establish yourselves as a couple. Perhaps the last chance. You know how good he is at cutting off his nose to spite his face, his bull headed inferiority complex as far as emotions are concerned. How he reverts to the impassive soldier when under pressure."

He tried a smile, but it was more of a grimace. This was not his field, not his intimacy. And yet he had to get the words out. "Break his barriers while you still can. Swallow your pride and your doubts. Go to him. Show him how stressful this has been to you. How exhausted you are. Act, if you have to. Be feminine. Make love to him."

She looked at him. Appalled at his words.

"'Make love'?" she flung back. "Not your usual terminology. And sod all to do with you anyway."

"To do with me when my family is fracturing before my eyes. And it was you who claimed me as family, not me. Not the other way round." His hand tightened on her arm. "Not my terminology? OK. Go fuck him through the mattress, then. But do it. It may be your last chance to play happy families."

She looked up at him, frozen and silent, for long seconds. And when she spoke her voice was hushed, anger - or emotion - beyond words.

"I hate you."

"Good. That's good," he agreed. "I would, too."

Watched her leave silently, tucking her gun, without fuss, into her handbag. And sat back down into the armchair he had been in before their lives exploded.

He registered vaguely that he was shaking. That he was feeling old and exhausted and empty.

Then John Watson returned, carrying a tea tray that looked identical to the one the boy Karim had dropped lifetimes earlier, and with three cups upon it.

He stood in the middle of the room and looked round.

"She's exhausted. Gone to bed," Sherlock Holmes answered the unasked question.

"Ah. Right."

John Watson nodded, and moved to sit down and put the tea tray on the low table.

"No! Not here." The sharp words had him reacting, standing upright again, the tray still in his hands. "Take the tea with you. Upstairs. To your room, Share it with Mary."

"Oh. Really? OK. Don't you need tea? After all that?"

"I mean it, John. Go to Mary. Love her and tell her you forgive her for trying so hard to save your life. Yours and Rosie's"

"I don't know that I do forgive her." His face was hard, shadowed with effort, "I didn't forgive you for dying and saving mine….."

The voice was flat and stubborn, but honest.

"You should have learnt from that. Or pretend. Love her and reassure her. Show any compassion you learnt by not forgiving me for doing the same."

The look he got then was bright and sharp.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock."

"Don't be. You made no vow to me. But I made a vow to you. To protect you all, to always be there for you. Go and love your wife, Doctor Watson. And try to relax."

He settled himself more comfortably on the chair, turned determinedly away. The conversation was over, and he did not want to see his best friend's face.

He heard the footsteps walking slowly away. And released the breath he did not know he had been holding. Allowed the tension to seep from his bones And realised his jaw still hurt.

o0o0o

Alone and in the dark, he reflected on what had just happened. On the events of the last two days. He closed the door and the shutters of the room and took out his mobile phone. Looked resolutely at the wall.

At that time of night the line was clear, and the four thousand miles between the hotel room and Mycroft Holmes's office was as nothing.

"To what do I owe this communication, brother mine?"

He was at his most arch, most arrogant. And the younger brother reflected that his older brother probably already knew some of what he was about to tell him.

Nevertheless, he said briskly: "A debrief, if you will." And proceeded to recount the events of the night.

"…The English woman. That's all he heard. Naturally he assumed it was Mary."

"Couldn't this wait until you got back?"

The feigned disinterest and coolness from London did not fool him.

"I don't think so, do you? This has been on your mind for far too long."

"What? A seedy little assassination in Morocco?"

"The fear of a mole deep within the machine."

The silence was brief, but telling.

"Yet again, you speak gibberish. And I do not intend to humour you."

"Not on an open line, you mean? Why bother? If the interloper is as deep or as high as you may think, hacking into a scrambled line would be child's play."

"I could not possibly comment. You have always had such wild ideas."

"Mine? No. a little bird tells me all I know. What you would not tell me….."

"Do stop it. The incident is long over."

"But the file is not closed. Circumstances reopened it, and I dived in."

"Unofficially it s over."

"Certainly there are people who would like it to be.. But no. It's not over yet. Ajay was an independent witness. He reiterated what Mary had said, and there was no way they could have compared notes, fabricated a story. So it has to be true.

"Ajay said that they'd been betrayed. The hostage takers knew AGRA were coming. AGRA heard only a voice on the phone, remember. A voice that sent everyone to Hell. An Englishwoman. And a code word."

"Ammo. Yes, you said." The apparent lack of interest and engagement was palpable. But the younger Holmes knew the elder only too well. Could hear the concentration humming in his direction.

"How's your Latin, brother dear?" he asked smoothly.

"My Latin?"

"Of course, your Latin. The very first verb one learns to decline as a schoolboy. Memorising the tables of the tenses. Puts you off or makes you a Latin scholar for life. I know which I am, but which were you? Amo, amas, amat….." he recited.

"I love, you love, he loves….what?" Genuinely puzzled now, not catching up at the required speed. Distracted by the importance of the need for a solution.

Sherlock Holmes clicked his tongue deliberately against his teeth. The sound said:

 _Concentrate, brother._

"Not ammo as in ammunition," he spoke carefully as if to a child. "Amo meaning…."

The rest of the sentence hung in the air between them Elementary Latin. Amo; meaning 'I love' He waited two seconds for the British Government to catch up. To compute. To realise the importance of what he was not saying.

 _It seemed so long ago now. The darkened Cabinet briefing room. The moving screen, the doctored film showing the official version of the death of Charles Augustus Magnussen. And the act of being careless and carefree and high. Mycroft's voice: "…only the people in this room; code name Antartica, Langdale, Porlock and Love will ever know the whole truth."_

 _Indeed so. If he was right._

 _Mycroft had always been know as The Ice Man; and not just to Irene Adler and James Moriarty. So Antartica was the perfect code name_

 _Langdale was Sir Edwin. A play on his surname, a major landmark overshadowing his family estate._

 _He himself had always been labelled Porlock; a 'person from Porlock' had interrupted Taylor Coleridge's opium induced haze while writing Kubhla Khan. A 54 line poem never finished as a result, with the 'person from Porlock' ever more known as the disrupter of creativity. The sort of literary pun and accusation , a judgement against himself that would amuse Mycroft_

 _The idea had been Mycroft's, years ago, and it had stuck. An insult more than a compliment; the connection the drug haze. But he himself had always empathised more with Stevie Smith's version of that person: ''along comes the person from Porlock, and takes the blame,' declared her poem._

 _Yes, yes. As always._

 _The poem came back to his mind, unbidden, as poems are wont to do. 'It was not right, it was wrong. But often we all do wrong.' he thought, the poem unreeling in his head, unbidden, as he waited for his brother's response_

 _Waited patently. Because of the importance of the identity of the woman whose code name was Love…._

Mycroft's voice interrupted his thoughts: uncannily quoting the poem back to him. Their thoughts meshing, as they sometimes did. Removing all doubt.

"'Oh, Person From Porlock, come quickly, and bring my thoughts to an end'," Mycroft quoted, almost absent mindedly.

"Indeed so." Drily, but a reply without irony or humour.

"You'd better be right, Sherlock."

And put his telephone down without another word.

o0o0o

Sherlock Holmes, sitting alone on the plane back to London - and back to Rosie - sat in the row behind John and Mary Watson the next morning; Mary in the aisle seat, John by the window, an empty seat between them and an entire world within that void.

From their careful body language he could not read what had happened between husband and wife during the previous night. And he closed his mind on the problem. Delicacy and detachment. It was none of his business.

He himself, alone in the adjoining bedroom, had slept little, turning the problem of Amo over and over in his mind. Ajay may have died before he could tell them more, but what he had said may have been tantalisingly enough to put him on the right track. About Amo, about an Englishwoman's voice. About a man with gold teeth….

His thoughts went round and round. And his jaw still ached….

o0o0o

Consciousness had not come back gently or easily, with smoothness or orientation. It ha come back with a jolt as strong male hands grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him up and forwards.

Pain, fear, an instinct for self preservation and protective adrenalin flooded his mind and his body faster than the instinctive thoughts that were telling him he was still lying on the hard wet cobbles of the pavement in Tblisi, that his head hurt, his jaw hurt, that consciousness might still be conditional.

That there were hands still on him - strong hard hands - and that he was still being attacked.

So he reacted. Faster than thought

"Argh!"

It started as a groan of pain, but came out as a challenging roar of anger and effort.

A cry of survival, of determination of self defence. Instinct drove his muscles forward, wrenching his shoulders out of the grasping hands, and a totally instinctive half shoulder spring exploded him off his back, up and forward and into a low crouch, swinging to face the enemy with hands as weapons.

Reacting blindly, poised to fight, hands flashing into clubs protecting his groin and his throat, ready to defend and survive.

"Sherlock! No! Stop!"

The words did not penetrate, nor the tone of them. In such a state of disorientation pain and panic, they were just sound. Threatening white noise. Sound to react to.

Nico Sologashvili had a rare moment of active fear. Flinging himself away from the unexpected attack, he took a sharp step backwards, hands raised in a placating gesture.

"Sherlock! Please!"

Yet even as he spoke, he knew Sherlock Holmes did not hear him.

This, he saw with something like awe, this was what an animal at bay - a dangerous animal at bay - looked like. From unconscious and shrunken to alert and totally reactive in a second.

He had been warned that Sherlock Holmes was formidable, he had seen in the earlier visit that the younger man was formidable. But the lurch of fear when unexpectedly confronting this machine whirling in self defence with a sudden, almost inhuman, surge of power, of electricity, was as unusual as it was unexpected.

He put out a hand, and it was blocked, knocked away in a fast riposte. He stepped forward, and Sherlock Holmes retreated.

"Sherlock. Its me. Nico. Sirius. If you prefer that name? I'm not attacking you. I saw what happened to you. On the CCTV from my house. I came out straight away. But they've gone, Sherlock. The men who hurt you."

The mindless creature before him shook it's head, turned to spin away, slipped on the wet cobbles and went down onto knees and elbows. A flailing of arms and legs, a scrabbling of feet. Nico Sologashvili reached out, caught the nape of a neck, and reeled back himself as the head jerked forward instead of back, hard forehead slamming into the bridge of his nose, making him see stars and taste blood.

His own reaction was to strike out, and a lucky, unsighted blow to the side of his jaw had Sherlock Holmes downed like a dead thing.

" _Ra gaak ete_?" the voice was sharp in his ear as his sister rushed past him to drop to her knees. " _Is mok vda_?"

"I haven't done anything," Nico Sologashvili could hear his voice, a little too fast, too high in pitch, as the shock registered. "And of course he isn't dead!"

"We must get him into the house. Safe."

She was kneeling on the wet ground, Sherlock Holmes' head in her lap. "Nico!"

The Georgian was still slightly stunned from the blow to his nose. Slow to react. And wary. Was Mycroft Holmes' baby brother really unconscious? Or was he pretending, and ready to attack again?

He stepped forward slightly.

"Are you sure he is out of it?"

"Of course! You hit him hard. And he's cold. A dead weight. See?"

The Georgian squatted down to look. And looked properly.

The face of a Grecian statue, remote and contained, not classical beauty but striking nevertheless. High cheekbones, a good nose, an over sensual mouth. More human, somehow, features more striking, but less aristocratic and ascetic than his brother.

The dark unruly hair was wet from the ground, and the feminine eyelashes fluttered against the alabaster pale skin. The body was unusually still and formless somehow, and the long wiry hands on the ground were turned palms up as if in supplication.

He watched his sister stroke gently along the unfeeling jaw line.

"He has been hurt. Why did you hurt him?"

"I didn't…not until I had to defend myself. Someone jumped him as he left here. Bashed him to the ground and thumped him. I saw it happen on the CCTV. But was too slow to stop it…"

He reached out a hand to press fingers into a cold unresponsive palm. Made a decision.

Shuffled closer. Put out his arms and eased them between back and knees. Struggled from kneeling to standing like a weightlifter, grunting with effort to lift his burden. Sherlock Holmes' head fell back, exposing a long throat, a prominent Adam's apple.

He was lighter than expected, limbs longer, trailing.

Nia skipped in front of him to open the front door of the house, and he was almost through the doorway when his burden came to life.

"Don't struggle. Or I'll drop you!"

The body in his arms stiffened, froze. Obeyed. And it was the work of a moment to step through the door into the hall, towards the sitting room, and to drop the Englishman onto the sofa, stepping quickly away, hands raised, to avoid further reaction and defensive attack.

"Thank you."

The words were so quiet he thought he had imagined them. "You saved me from more punishment. You came out. You didn't have to."

"No," he agreed. "I didn't have to. But it was my fault." Chose to misunderstand the implied compliment. "I recognised the man who attacked you."

"Yes."

"Who was it, Nico? Who?" Nia's plea was not answered directly. Instead her brother turned to his laptop, clicked buttons brought up the security camera recording. Stood to one side as she watched. Gasped. Put her hands to her mouth.

"Sherlock….I am so sorry. This was meant to hurt me. Not you."

"No. Mine. I played up to you. Laid it on a bit thick. I knew your husband - your ex-husband -was a jealous man. I had not expected him to be quite so jealous. There's always something."

She turned to him. He was sitting up now, cradling his jaw in one hand.

"It IS my fault. I flirted shamelessly with you, and in public too."

"I know that. And I could have stopped you. I didn't. Could have left here afterwards by the back door. I didn't. Could have reasoned with him, pleaded for mercy. I couldn't do that. So…."

He shrugged, Twitched his mouth in an ironic grin. "You are both very eager to blame yourselves for this. Don't bother."

She turned to him, stroked a hand, quelled her anger. Grateful for his pragmatic calm.

"You look as if you are hurting. I'll get you some painkillers for that jaw….."

And she swept away. Leaving the two men to look at each Holmes was the first to speak.

"He reacted, as you wanted. Was that the reaction you expected?"

"I'm not sure. Just wanted to flush him out. Have her see him for what he is. A bully."

"Good looking and superficially charming, like many bullies. But you can understand a mutual dark attraction."

"She left him the very first time he threatened her. Jealous of her intelligence as well as her beauty."

"You knew how he would be. Yet you did not warn her."

"What would have been the point? It could have turned her against me. And then she would have been too ashamed to come home. After she left him."

"Not with Tamora there to broker peace."

"She was already dead. This was six months after the siege. When I was in the depths of despair without her. When everything Tamora had done was still being questioned. As if she had been at fault. As if she should have foreseen what was going to happen….."

He turned away, put a hand to his face.

"She has been dead a long time. Why are you still upset?" The tone was neutral, the face lacking any expression except a detached curiosity. Nico Sologashvili had expected nothing else.

"You wouldn't understand."

"No. But I understand the shadow over you. You knew where she died, and how. But you don't know exactly why."

"You do understand."

"Of course. I always understand more than I …..hmn."

He looked at the Georgian long and hard.

"Your sister will have had no opportunity to share with you certain information I gave her this evening. So….."

He took his mobile phone from his coat pocket, pressed buttons, sent the file he had sent and retrieved earlier to the Georgian's laptop. Repeated the concentration, the diary entries, the picture of the girl with the pearl earring.

At some point Nia returned, silently pressed a glass of water and two painkillers into Sherlock Holmes' hand, and watched the story unfold again.

Eventually he leant back and looked at the Georgian with a new sharp assessment.

"When you formally identified your wife's body - afterwards - were you shown photographs of the death scene? The hotel ballroom at the embassy?"

"A couple. Enough." His mouth twisted down at the memory and he looked away from those alien grey eyes that seemed to miss nothing yet still saw more.

"Hmn."

"Sherlock….."He waved away Nia's interruption.

"When I was here before I studied the crime scene photographs. Only later was I able to see additional photographs. A second set of photographs were taken which revealed several differences that open up alternative possibilities…."

The analysis that followed was detailed, intense, forensic. He did not spare Nico Sologashvili any of the photographs of his wife in death; photographs from official files, from HilaryWeatherstone's hidden hoard, from Embassy files.

"Where did you get all these photographs? I haven't seen most of them. "

"Because they are graphic. Truth is often harsh, especially when dealing with sudden death. People were protecting you. Also protecting their own backs by not releasing these photographs. They raise more question than they answer, you see."

"Yes?"

"There was a rumour your wife and Julia Tregarron were having an affair. Groundless of course a red herring. The Lady Ambassador was clearly having an affair with someone else. A Georgian national. Being very discreet. Using Tamora as shield and scapegoat."

"No! There is no way…."

"There is every way. And Tamora was a good victim. She was kind, you see. Cultured,tolerant, civilised."

"You say that as if such qualities are flaws."

"No. But they were qualities that made her malleable."

Sherlock Holmes turned away from the laptop to look at the Georgian; the agent, the art expert; but mostly at the widower.

Nico Sologashvili was sitting with clenched fists, tears dripping inelegantly from his face, eyes fixed on the images being shown on screen.

"I hope you aren't finding this too upsetting?" the consulting detective asked with distant politeness into the silence.

"It is…tearing out my heart," was the reply. The face suddenly naked. His sister reached out a hand to take a hand.

"It is merely fact. You should find the photographs reassuring," was the brusque response. "They show your wife was not to blame. In fact she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is clear from the photographs that she only died because she was close to Julia Tregarron in their hiding place; and the bullet that killed her passed straight through the Ambassador and had enough velocity to kill Tamora as well. Your wife was merely collateral damage."

"Merely?" Tamora's husband surged to his feet. "That is no way to describe….."

"The heart of your heart. Yes, I know that," Sherlock Holmes waved the emotion away impatiently. Only to choke and gasp for air as hands clamped angrily around his throat.

"That was a phrase between us only. Not for others. How did you know that? How?"

"Put me down, you madman!"

The attack had been a total surprise. And he was already in ain and weakened from the attack earlier.

"I mean it, Sherlock! My God, you are more impossible than your brother, and I thought he was a bloodless freak! How did you know our secret name for each other - Tamora and me?"

"Put me down!"

He hung between hands older and angrier than his own, but did not answer. Watched the brain behind golden brown eyes work out the answer for himself.

"When you were here before; when I was drunk; you…took advantage of that. Broke into my laptop. Found our letters - secret, loving, intimate letters. And you plundered them."

The silence was it's own answer.

"How could you do that? You utter bastard. How could you betray my marriage….my hospitality…. like that?"

"My job. People - their feelings, your feelings - don't matter. My job is truth and justice. You don't like that? And I thought you were a professional….."

"Not all the time! Not all the bloody time!"

With a roar of immeasurable anger the Georgian wrapped one hand round the younger man's throat, grasped his crotch with the other, and slung him forcefully at the opposite wall. Put out an arm to restrain his sister from rushing to the side of the crumpled heap in the corner.

Sherlock Holmes made no sound but crawled slowly to his feet. Wobbled erect.

"Julia Tregarron was having an affair," he said slowly, as if explaining the facts of life to a mall child. "She was using your wife as excuse and shield. I think the man she was having her affair with had something to do with the siege. I think Julia had something to do with the siege. I think Tamora found out. And she died tryng to stop Julia doing…whatever she was doing."

He looked into the ravaged face of Tamora Sologashvili's husband and continued regardless, without apology or pity.

"That Tamora, even when confronting terrorists and gunfire and possible death, was trying to stop Julia from doing…whatever it is she was doing. Plotting or stealing whatever it was about the exhibition she was plotting or stealing.

"But when Tregarron died she had something in her hand. Something I think Tamora was trying to stop her stealing. Something that then disappeared. Haven't worked it all out yet.

He shook his head in frustration. His head hurt, his jaw hurt, and the painkillers still hadn't kicked in. Perhaps two more might help?

"Someone shot Julia, Perhaps because of what she was stealing or plotting. Perhaps because of something else. Or all three. Trying to turn the siege to her own advantage. Or perhaps that was what the siege was all about? And Tamora got shot because she was also trying to stop Julia. But for entirely different reasons, wouldn't you say?"

The silence in the room was suddenly deafening. He took a deep breath and straightened his clothing, leaning away from the wall that had been supporting him to see if he could stay upright without it's help…..something in his head reminded him it had been a long day.

"If events at the end of the siege happened as I suspect…then your wife was not just a victim of betrayal and savagery; she was also a heroine. But you don't want to hear that either, do you?" he paused. "Self pity, Nico. Never attractive."

"You are….. "

"An utter bastard. Yes, heard you the first time."

He past the man who had just attacked him and sat back down at the laptop.

"But the question remains." His hands flew over the keys. Blended images. From the photographs patiently selected from embassy, police and Hilary Weatherstone's hidden files, from the house CCTV of that evening.

Of a big man with manicured hands, chipped knuckles. And gold teeth.

All the images were incomplete. Shadowy, grainy, distanced. But put them toether and there were enough features to identify a man.

"Two members of AGRA identified a man with gold teeth at the siege, being part of it. And later, torturing and questioning one of them,over and over, Because he could. But also because there was information he desperately needed to know About who had betrayed him during the siege, and why.

"And yet the long view was that the betrayal and siege had been against the embassy and the unity of Georgia, it's new role in the outside world. Not the siege makers themselves. So it is more complicated than I thought. I need to find this man, who he is and what he knows."

He turned from the grief stricken man to the quiet woman standing between them, who was looking cornered and lost.

"This is the man who attacked me tonight. Hit me so hard he almost broke my jaw. Now, it is not unusual for people to want to hit me - but this is different." The smile in his voice faded, the tone hardened.

"This man was with your ex-husband. Happy to do his bidding, and just as violent if not more so. So you know him. Who is he, Nia? And what is he to do with all this?"

She looked wildly about her for a a moment; but the eyes of both her brother and the conulting detective were on her.

"Tell him, Nia," her brother urged. "Tell him who that man is."

She hesitated for just one moment more. Then capitulated,

"His name is Rivaz. Rivaz is - was - my brother in law."

Into the silence Sherlock Holmes nodded, smiled without humour, face rigid, did not thank her for the information.

"Yes. Of course he is. That makes sense."

o0o0o

Back at Heathrow he had slid away from the Watsons as soon as he could, with just a brief word of excuse.

"I am needed in town…..go and reclaim your child. Learn to be a family again."

"You're not coming with us?"

He ignored the appeal in Mary Watson's voice.

"Things to do. Will be in touch."

And he walked away from them without looking back. Whatever issues the Watsons had was between them now. He had done his best for them, and now could do no more. He felt the same empty distraction, the same need to get away, as when he had left their wedding reception.

How long ago that now seemed! How much had happened in the interim, and so little for the better. He angrily stamped down on that line of thought. He had too much to do to lose himself in the past. To indulge in wishful thinking or sentiment.

Sentiment! Mycroft's jibe several days ago had struck deep. He had no time for sentiment. It rotted the soul. Denied Samarra. Yes. Mycroft was right. He had always hated that story.

There was nothing he could do to change the past. Only answer the questions and change the perceptions that had arisen…and wonder about all the new questions that needed answers. All the little locked puzzle boxes within the biggest box;be it treasure chest or coffin.

He claimed a taxi and directed the driver to 85, Albert Embankment. Impatient to find what Mycroft had done, had discovered, had decreed. And where it led them.

The post modern building -known by a variety of nicknames from Ceausescu Towers and Legoland to The Ziggurat - was distinctive and unique, and was home to the Special Intelligence Service of the British Government, otherwise known as MI6.

The woman who was sometimes known as Anthea was waiting for him at reception. Anonymous grey suit of quality, immaculate hair and make up, a deceptively vague and taciturn charm.

She greeted him wordlessly with a nod, gave him a pass on a lanyard, beckoned him to follow her. Stairs and anonymous corridors later, she opened a door and ushered him before her into a small room furnished only with two chairs, a small desk, and a raised blind before a darkened window.

He could see into the room beyond; a similarly neutral room. A man and a woman sat facing each other. Both tall, slim, aristocratic. Guarded body posture, unreadable expressions. No telltale mannerisms or movements. The civilised impassivity of the true civil servant.

The woman had something imperious something impossibly regal in her bearing, the very tilt of her cool blonde head. He knew her too well. Ordinarily.

 _The Virgin Queen at Tilbury; Joan of Arc at the stake; Marie Antoinette before the guillotine….ridiculously fanciful! Get a grip! You're tired and lacking focus…_

"This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it," she said. Unbowed, quietly supercilious of her interrogator sitting opposite, an attitude barely disguised and verging on disdain. Far from prepared to accept her role as suspect. "How many more times?"

The interrogation had been going on for some time. Over and over. Both knew the game too well; the techniques, the demands on focus and patience. Round and round the mulberry bush.

"Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, code name Love."

It was not the first time he had pointed this out. Something they both knew, and had always known. Colleagues and almost friends for so many years. But never before facing each other across a table like this. With doubt and distrust. Dangerous civility.

Mycroft Holmes, immensely uncomfortable with the situation despite his urbane veneer, did not reply or respond in any way. He hated to appear less than adequate to any situation, especially before the woman sitting within inches of him who had once been his mentor, beneath a bright overhead light that exposed everything, each to the other. And before the veiled attention of his brother. Whose idea this had been.

An idea he was steadily, increasingly, feeling was wrong. And to be wrong footed by both his brother and his professional equal was a position he was not used to and did not like.

She read his discomfort

"And you're basing all this on a code name? On a whispered voice on the telephone? Come on, Mycroft."

Overly calm, measured, an edge of scorn.

"You were the conduit for AGRA. Every assignment, every detail, they got from you."

A discreet accusation; telling her something they both knew, had always known..

"It was my job," she pointed out, without heat.

Mycroft Holmes unfolded his hands, banished the tension in them, leant back. A professional assumption of endless patience.

"Then there was the Tblisi incident," he continued relentlessly. "AGRA went in. " He paused for effect, to give her space to hurry in with an answer, an excuse, a plea. But she sat and watched him, impassive and unmoved. " And they were betrayed."

"Not by me." Calm, collected, giving not an inch. As if she was the interrogator. Certainly it was Mycroft, the real interrogator, who appeared more uncomfortable, unusually ill at ease.

Mycroft Homes did not reply to that. Simply looked levelly back at her. Lady Elizabeth Alicia Smallwood pulled a breath and sighed. As if far too well bred to show her impatience with her younger prodigy, her disappointment that he had put her in this position.

"I repeat. Not by me."

He did not answer, but looked away; just for an instant And she did not miss that break in the armour, that admission of unease.

"Mycroft, we've known each other a long time." Her voce was softer now. Almost gentle in its frustration. "I promise you, I haven't the foggiest idea what all this is about. You wound up AGRA and al the other freelancers. I haven't done any of the things you accuse me of. Not one, Not. One."

Mycroft looked away and down. Looked to his left. On the other side of the one way mirror Sherlock Holmes watched, impassive Watched his brother adjust his immaculate jacket, a rare nervous tick.

Throughout the long interview - which had gone round and round in fruitless circles, attempting to find a break in the repetition to prise out a lie, a slip; a mistake he somehow knew would never come, he had watched Lady Smallwood alone. He did not need to watch his brother. He knew what his line of questioning would be, his mental attitude, his physical stance.

He concentrated solely on Elizabeth Smallwood. Sitting erect in the hard chair, cool and collected as ever.

The pale grey paisley blouse was high necked and severe, robbing her of what little colour normally lay in her pale aristocratic face. She looked suddenly old, he thought. Lined and exhausted and wizened. Shrunken into herself.

The accusation had hit her hard. She had, he realised suddenly, shed her usual armour of accessories and make up quite deliberately. As if wearing sackcloth and ashes. To be naked before her judgement. To convey honesty and sincerity .

He looked more closely.

This was a woman used to objectivity, decision making, influencing the lives of people and nations. She could lie and manipulate and convince without even thinking about it. She had done so for years, without guilt or conscience if the work and the safety and interests of the nation demanded it.

Sitting across a desk in an interview room to tilt the world on it's axis was nothing new to this woman. And he reflected on this: how long had he known her? Known her strength and her power?

Nine years old. Trotting silently behind his mother, on best behaviour on a visit to Papa in his office for a reason long deleted. Identical dark corridors with shiny marble floor. a large wood panelled office bathed in sunshine. Papa sitting behind a huge director's desk, a slim blonde woman at his side.

Elizabeth Eastwood as she was then. A rising star, Papa had said, someone he was mentoring. The boy had not known that word. So was intrigued.

She spotted him looking at her, smiled gravely into his eyes rather than ignoring him as most people did.

"Hello, William," she had said.

"What's mentoring?" he had asked.

"Teaching," she had said. "And I daresay that will happen to you, one day. If you come and work here. Follow family tradition."

He had wrinkled his nose and frowned at that, and as Mother spoke to Papa, they had shared a grin that seemed secretive and a little wicked. For without words she had realised that becoming an instrument of government in a three piece suit was the very last thing he planned to do with his life, even if that was the family linage and his older brother's ambition.

That link, that empathy between them had held firm over the years. Despite her promotions to high office and marriage to Jack Smallwood. Even after the traumas of Sri Lanka and all that followed: Siward's catastrophic injury and retirement from government service, his new life. Even after William's transformation from precocious child to enigmatic, impossible Sherlock.

It had brought her to Baker Street to remove a blackmail threat. A trust in him as a person stronger than her trust of his brother as a colleague.

And now he had proffered doubts ad questions and may be thought to have betrayed her.

But in her very posture - leaning slightly back, head high, hands gripping the chair arms in a series of physical tells so unlike her usual polite civility that dictated her normal behaviour beyond all things, in such tiny signs of humanity and hurt and fear he saw the truth.

And it was clear from his single glance to the two way mirror, knowing his brother was there observing, that Mycroft saw this too.

Sherlock Holmes gave the unreflecting mirror a nod of decision. And left the room.

o0o0o

By the time she had regained her security passes, donned her jacket and jewellery, had taken a few moments pause in the senior ladies cloakroom to clear her mind and calm her breathing, he had made his way to her office.

The secretary's niche was empty; as tidy and anonymous as always. It was a relief to not have to negotiate and explain himself to the elderly lady who had always stood guard at the entrance to Elizabeth Smallwood's eyrie.

And now he emptied his mind and simply stood and waited.

She entered the room quietly, and to her credit did not stop or even break stride to find him standing beside her desk. A statue of a man at parade rest, motionless and without expression.

Tall, Byronic handsome, coat collar flipped high. So familiar, yet subtly different. Gaunt, withdrawn, not meeting her eye as he would normally, but concentrating on some fixed point on the wall opposite.

She walked up to him without hesitation, looked up into his face. He did not look down at her or speak. Waiting.

"This was your doing," she said without preamble. "Casting doubt on my integrity. My reputation. My honesty."

He still did not speak, but slowly his head came down. And as soon as slate grey eyes met pale blue ones, she reacted.

Her right hand lashed out and struck his left cheek with full force. The impact jarred her wrist up to her shoulder and made her fingers tingle. She had not realised she was so angry until she released the full force of it. And was instantly ashamed of herself.

Yet he did not move, or flinch, did nothing to avoid or dissipate the blow. As her hand dropped slowly back to her side - awkward, off kilter - and she watched the red flush of blood rising on his face from the impact, he quietly asked:

"Feel better, now?"

"You. Shit. How could you?"

After the weakness of reaction, it seemed a huge admission ofeven greater weakness just to ask the question.

"Because that is what you expect of me. Need from me. Forensic assessment and judgement. So that is what I do."

"Sherlock….."

"You were at the heart of this from the start. Oversaw the reopening of the British Embassy in Georgia. Finally sent in AGRA to break the siege when all else failed, Passed the still open file to Mycroft because of his history at the Georgian Embassy when you were promoted beyond past problems to more immediate ones. Thinking he would solve it. But he didn't.

"Then the unexpected reappearance of Ajay Moopanar brought the Tblisi siege back to the surface, so it was bound to interest you.

And when Mary Watson, or Morston, or Ro Adams, take your pick - revealed that the change in plan was authorised by the voice of an Englishwoman using the right code word, and was later verified independently by Moopanar - then you were the obvious candidate as traitor."

"But…"

"You cannot escape the logic, Elizabeth." He spoke over her with a forceful calm she could not deny. "The code word was 'Amo.' Not 'ammo' as in ammunition, as everyone would expect, but 'amo' as in the Latin verb 'to love.' And 'Love' has always been your code name within the service. A nice play on words. But a bit too simple for you, I would have said. Nor subtle enough, .

"As soon as this new information became common knowledge, you would be the immediate and obvious suspect. Far better Mycroft took control of the situation and ran with it, exploded it before you were exposed at a higher and less sympathetic level. So we moved on with this new information, to test and break it. Correct?"

"I…yes…I see. Yes."

"Good. How many people would know your code name to use and abuse it, trying to be clever by throwing suspicion onto you if the knowledge ever came out? How bringing the attack forward stopped the siege being broken? And hopefully killed everyone in AGRA who knew.

Does that not shift responsibility to a level above your own? So who - which 'Englishwoman' - could that have been?"

"Constance Protheroe? But she died last year. Diane Mathie, perhaps? She's now retired….."

"Hmn, Any more thoughts, pass them on to Mycroft. We have established you had no motivation and are in the clear."

"To Mycroft? But what about you?"

"I have.. other calls on my time. Investigating from the other end, you might say." He looked thoughtfully at her. Swayed slightly, frowned, and put a hand to his face, on the jaw where she had struck him.

"Are you OK?"

"You should know better than to ask."

He took a step back, inclined his head in a curt bow of farewell, took five long strides towards the door.

He had opened it and was halfway through when she called him back.

"I'm sorry," the words of contrition left her with strange reluctance. "That I hit you. It hurt…."

He tossed his head as if angry. Unreadable, unknowable even to her, as ever.

"Everything in life hurts, Elizabeth. If you let it."

"William…."

But she was speaking to empty air. He had gone.

o0o0o

Deep in thought, he left the Ziggurat behind and crossed Vauxhall Bridge, walking ever more slowly and burdened by his thoughts. Then he stopped, turned, and leant his hands on the parapet. Gazed down into the swirling brown water as it passed the cutwaters and disappeared.

 _It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things._

 _When life places stones in your path, be the water. A persistent drop of water will wear away the hardest stone._

 _Until justice rolls down like water….._

 _As water retains no constant shape, in warfare there are no constant conditions…._

His thoughts swirled in sympathy. Swirled and sorted and selected their places in the puzzle.

 _You think you understand. You understand nothing. Ajay, bitter and scathing, and knowing both too much and too little for his own good._

 _Six plaster busts… Six chances for knowledge and justice. Gelder's pottery, Dato's samples - thrown, smashed down, breaking into shards and just one containing a secret….._

 _Mycroft's brusque voice before the secret committee….; 'Code names Antartica, Langdale, Porlock and Love….'_

 _And who else knew the identity of those code names?_

" _Do not minute this…."_

 _Mary, looking into her phone, the camera turned on herself and Rosie. On John's screen, talking to Sherlock. Laughing and almost playful, but cynical too:_

" _You would be amazed what a receptionist picks up -" as she lowered her voice melodramatically and leant into the screen as if sharing a secret… "They know everything…."_

 _Ajay telling his story: "He said it was the Englishwoman…"_

" _Don't minute any of this…"_

" _They know everything…."_

Sherlock Holmes jolted into life, came back into himself. Turned his head to the right, turned back from where he had come. A first step, energy building. Back towards the Ziggurat the building he has just left.. Another step…..

" _everything…."_

He gasped, exclaimed, looked up towards Lady Elizabeth Smallwood's office, And broke into a run…..

TO BE CONTINUED...

 **Author's Notes:**

Hotel Cecil: There really is an Hotel Cecil in Marrakesh, just 200 yards from the Soukh Medina, and looks very like the T6T set. There is also a Hotel Cecil in Tangiers, one of the oldest and most famous hotels in North Africa.

Pranama: an overall title for the six signs of honour and respect in Hinduism, varieties of bowing, touching and reaching forward in reverence. Namaskara is folded hands touching the forehead;

Kismet: Fate or Destiny; a word of Turkish origin

The Person from Porlock: Stevie Smith's poem, Thoughts About The Person From Porlock, is a reflection on ST Coleridge's reflections on why his great poem Khubla Khan was unfinished. Porlock is a coastal village on Exmoor, Somerset.

Langdale Pike is a minor character in ACD canon. (And appears in a modern role in the first story in this trilogy, _Things We Lost In The Flames_.) It is actually a range of high hills in The Lake District, Cumbria, near Ambleside.

The events in Sri Lanka, and Siward Holmes's injury and change of career are covered in the previous O'Donnell story, _The Magnussen Legacy_.

Quotes on water from Nicholas Sparks, Autumn Morning Star, Martin Luther King and Sun Tzu.


End file.
